tastelessness at unicon

General
61

More from Jamey-the guy that caused all this talk

Hi again to everyone,

First thing I want to ask is; Did you (meaning GILD, sendhair, unicus) actually see my routine? Or are you just making comments and suggestions to something you NEVER even seen? Please let me know cause I’d like to know. I can almost bet that at least 2 of you never even saw it. And if you haven’t how can you talk about something you have no idea about? It flambergasses me.

As to the “Born in the USA” song being unpatriotic…well apparantely you didn’t see my routine because I only used the first two paragraphs from the song which I think are patriotic.

 Born down in a dead man's town 
 The first kick I took was when I hit the ground 
 You end up like a dog that's been beat too much 
 Till you spend half your life just covering up 

 (chorus) 
 Born in the U.S.A. 
 I was born in the U.S.A. 
 I was born in the U.S.A. 
 Born in the U.S.A.

Again, don’t talk unless you know what your talking about-I didn’t use the whole song.

As to GILD saying “keep politics out of sport/unicycling”
My routine didn’t have politics in it, if you ask me. It was strictly patriotic and a tribute. That’s it…nothing more. If you want a political routine I’ll show you one, but believe me mine wasn’t. Next Unicon when it’s in Japan, I’ll do a routine relating to Pearl Harbor with war sounds-guns, planes, etc. With the President at the time saying war, war, war over and over again. Now that would be a political routine and something worth complaining over unlike my “Tribute” routine. Now I would never do such a routine, but just trying to make a point as to how my routine was not that bad-not as bad as your making it sound. And if you took it to be a political routine, well than you must be one of those people that always draws conclusions and assumptions about things that may not be true. When you assume it makes an ASS out of U and ME!

As to sendhair saying "The problem with “patriotism” is that too many times it becomes just a slogan to defend “nationalism”. It also has become a word that is used to make people shut up when they righteously criticize something that “their” government is doing. If “patriotism” to you means “my country, right or wrong”, well, then I’m not a patriot. "

Patrioism to me means I love my country and I stand up for it, mabye not everything it does but for the most part, and will defend it if push comes to shove. I think this is very important for people in their countries to believe. If you don’t agree with your government, than mabye it’s time to find one that you are patriotic about and love-there are tons of countries out there to choose from and believe me if I didn’t like mine, I would be out of here in a second. Why live your whole life in a country you don’t love?

Also when sendhair said “I seriously doubt that the firefighters, rescue personnel, police officers, and just plain ordinary office workers who tried to help people in the WTC were acting out of a sense of patriotism. There were people in that building from at least 48 different countries. Would it have been patriotic to only rescue Americans?”

I never said those rescue’ers were being patriotic-just HEROS. I mean would you go into a building that tall that’s burning and might collapse? That takes a lot of courage and I was trying to thank all of those that tried being a HERO even if they didn’t come out alive. I think they all, dead or alive, deserve to be remembered and honored. My routine was dedicated to ALL those who died and helped out in the WTC attacks-both americans and all the other people from 48 countries. No one deserves that kind of death and they all should be remembered, not just americans.

unicus wrote:
"I don’t think anyone will change their minds on subjects such as this (politics, bad taste etc) unless that is they experience it from the opposite side and, now this is the important part, they can relate and link the two. Be objective, stand back and look at it from someone else’s perspective. "

Believe me, I have and that’s my problem…I don’t see why people would be offended by such a patriotic tributing routine. I can see people being offended if they believed I was trying to be political and had more clips of Bush saying things about war and stuff, but there weren’t and so that’s where I’m confused as to why someone would be offended as to someone just loving their country. Is it wrong to love your country and be proud enough to show it to others? I hope not.

To at1pe_uni, thanks for the nice compliments and reply.

Just wanted to say those things about some of the replies. Time for class…

62

Re: tastelessness at unicon

In article <tuna6869.akimb@timelimit.unicyclist.com>,
tuna6869 <tuna6869.akimb@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
)
)As to the “Born in the USA” song being unpatriotic…well apparantely
)you didn’t see my routine because I only used the first two paragraphs
)from the song which I think are patriotic.
)
)Born down in a dead man’s town
)The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
)You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much
)Till you spend half your life just covering up
)
)(chorus)
)Born in the U.S.A.
)I was born in the U.S.A.
)I was born in the U.S.A.
)Born in the U.S.A.

Look man, the song is about being disillusioned and disenfranchised–it’s
about how if you’re “born in the USA,” you’re screwed. I wouldn’t call
it unpatriotic, but it’s certainly not about being “happy and proud to be
an American.”

I think Bruce is a self-indulgent pretentious twerp, but that’s beside
the point.

It’s like “YMCA”–all kinds of religious-right zealots will get up and
make idiots of themselves when it’s played at the wedding or ballpark,
without realizing that the song isn’t about making letters with your
body, it’s about homosexual guys picking each other up at the gym.
-Tom

63

Re: Re: tastelessness at unicon

It’s a song, a piece of art, it’s open to interpretation and can be used in a way that sends the same message as the author of the song intended or as something different. Jamey choose to take one part of the song and use it to send a message of patriotism.

64

Re: Re: tastelessness at unicon

…Springstein, that is. :slight_smile:

Bruce (the Edwards type)

65

patriotism at UNICON

Jamey, to answer your question;
Nope, I did not attend UNICON and I did not see your freestyle competition performance. Neither did I directly criticize your performance in my posts in this thread. I initially posted in response to Sarah Miller’s original post. My comments have been general in nature. I did not feel that I was attacking or even talking about your performance, per se, but about the appropriateness of any political/patriotic/nationalistic messages at international Unicycling events. I’m not interested in viewing displays of patriotism at Unicycling events. That was my point. I’ve noticed that people tend to drag the word “patriotism” out mostly in times of war. Would you have ever choreographed a patriotic freestyle routine before the terrorist attacks of last year? Patriotics is appropriate at 4th of July Volunteer Firemen’s Festivals and Veterans’ Day Parades.

I never said that I don’t like my country. I do not consider my country and the people who are in charge of it at any given time to be the same thing. That is one of the best things about our country; we have the freedom (although, with the way things are looking, maybe not for long) to question, to disagree with, to protest government policies, and to demand change.

It’s very scary when people start saying things like “if you don’t agree with your government, it’s time to get out and go to some other country” (I’m not quoting, I’m paraphrasing here). Is that your definition of democracy? Yes, I’m familiar with the slogan “Love it or Leave it”. Who are you to define what’s patriotic for me?

I never said that “Born in the USA” was unpatriotic. I said I couldn’t understand how people considered it to be a patriotic anthem, and I still don’t, except if I consider that they haven’t listened to or understood the lyrics.

How is cowering like a beaten dog in an economically broken town a positive portrayal of American life?

As for your use of the song in your performance, and I only mention it now because you brought it up,…
So, you didn’t use the whole song. You edited another’s “art” (it’s really just pop music) and made it fit your context to your liking. How can you expect everyone to automatically switch their ideas about a song (which has been around for quite awhile) just because you want it to mean something else now? If Springsteen’s song is open to any interpretation that anyone wants to apply, then why not your freestyle performance, also? The fact that “The Boss” has not protested or tried to stop his song being used for patriotic performances has more to do with royalties than patriotism on his part.

Nobody has described for us here the other freestyle performances, only yours. It turned into a pretty long discussion. You probably never thought this would happen, but it has.

66

Re: patriotism at UNICON

There is a lot of patriotism at UNICON. People wave their country’s flag, wear stuff that is patriotic and share cultural stuff to others at UNICON. If you go to a UNICON, you will not be able to not see displays of patriotism.

He has. Over the past few years or more he has had a patriotic theme to his freestyle routines.

67

Re: Re: patriotism at UNICON

Every time I have seen Jamey at a convention his unicycle has been painted red, white, and blue. This year he added 50 stars to the paint job. I asked him if there were 50 stars on the unicycle and he said he was very careful to make sure that there were indeed exactly 50 stars. The point being, is that this type of a theme is not out of character for him.

68

UNICON

(sigh)

Well, guess I won’t be going to UNICON XII then, after all. Unless it’s decided to…

Would that be so wrong?

Yet, I know: Highly unlikely to ever happen.

Sorry, but I separate culture from patriotism. I’m not saying anyone else has to, though.

69

Re: tastelessness at unicon

In article <Gilby.aklmn@timelimit.unicyclist.com>,
Gilby <Gilby.aklmn@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
)
)It’s a song, a piece of art, it’s open to interpretation and can be used
)in a way that sends the same message as the author of the song intended
)or as something different. Jamey choose to take one part of the song and
)use it to send a message of patriotism.

Ah, but interpretation works both ways. I’d say, the message sent by
someone who uses “Born in the USA” as a patriotic song is “I’m so
blindly patriotic that I believe this is a patriotic song just because
it has ‘USA’ in the title, even though the song itself is severely
critical of the country.”

Not to mention, “I have no taste in music.”
-Tom
(Speaking as a born-and-raised Jersey boy)

70

Re: tastelessness at unicon

> unicus wrote:
> "I don’t think anyone will change their minds on subjects such as this
> (politics, bad taste etc) unless that is they experience it from the
> opposite side and, now this is the important part, they can relate and
> link the two. Be objective, stand back and look at it from someone
> else’s perspective. "
>
> to quote doctor Phil, ‘no matter how thin you make the pancake, it’s
> always got two sides’

The idea of two sides is infantile and ridiculous.

Unless you were suggesting empathizing with the terrorists?

Hint: more than two sides.

71

Re: tastelessness at unicon

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002 18:09:01 -0500, johnfoss
<johnfoss.aj5jn@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:

>
>> Just because somebody “created” something doesn’t
>> make it art. We all “create” a bowel movement daily…
>
>Ha! That’s an EXCELLENT analogy! I’ll have to remember that one.
>
>But… and here’s the rub:
>
>If you take that bowel movement, frame it, and hang it on the wall, it
>somehow crosses that fine line into the “could be art” category.

Believe this or not. Off-topic but true.
In my life, I’ve had some particularly artsy bowel movements. You
know, towers, animals, chinese characters. I’ve photographed some, or
called my wife or children to come and take a look. Everybody found
that weird. I’ve never hung one on the wall though.

Klaas Bil

If you had this signature, I have forged it.

72

I don’t follow. Jamey’s point was to say that he chose to tell his own story, that he did not intend to offend, but if the audience chose to be offended that was their option.

In other words, where would you draw the line for what has a place and what doesn’t? Trying to draw such a line is really hard, and is one of the reasons why we don’t try to restrict Freestyle performances. But I would like to see anyone’s attempts at drawing one.

Obviously it is not. Regardless of the amount of discussion, people are going to choose the magazines they want to buy on other merits besides its “artistic” value (if any). So TV Guide still has it beat in this country. For the most part, people don’t read magazines based on how controversial they are.

Same with a Freestyle performance. To return to our earlier analogy of art, to ride around with a piece of doo-doo on a silver platter can be your art, if you so choose. But it only wins if nobody does anything better. By definition of context, it’s art whether you like it or not.

In fact, I can think of a pretty funny act you could do with a piece of doo-doo on a silver platter. But the keys to making it would would be the execution of the comedy, and my hope that you’d use a plastic doo-doo and not the real thing!

I’m in favor of that, but not in Freestyle performances. What I would like to have is a reminder to people that when you’re at UNICON, the people around you have many different backgrounds and points of view. To think carefully about what you say and do.

For Freestyle performances, I’d like to apply some sort of statement of a similar nature, to consider the international audience and to be careful about religious, political, sexual, etc. topics. If you really want to be careful about them you can avoid them completely. But we shouldn’t make you.

Lots of other interesting discussion followed Jamey’s long post. First, thanks to Jamey for taking part and letting us know his intentions. I’m proud to say I guessed right, in that he wouldn’t have changed a thing. He still may not realize why some people were made uncomfortable by it, but as has been established early on, there is no rule against politically or emotionally charged performances.

What I did not guess right on was that he merely chose the theme, and apparently did not have anyone close to him that died or was otherwise directly affected. That just makes his resulting performance all the more powerful in my eyes.

For people who don’t “get” the whole Born in the U.S.A. thing: PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THE LYRICS! Lots of songs are like that, where people hear the chorus and never worry about the rest. I didn’t know what that song was about, even though I’ve heard it many times. The casual listener doesn’t necessarily pay attention to the words. So they get “Born in the U.S.A.” as the message. I’m pretty sure Jamey used the song because he liked the way it sounded.

And I disagree that the song is about Americans being treated like dirt. It’s about one guy being treated like dirt, or Vietnam Vets being treated like dirt. Not all Americans. In that, the message of the song is that the U.S.A. is not perfect.

Why are we called Americans? I don’t know, but in every country I’ve ever been to, that’s what people call us. America is the short version of my country’s name. As are we, everyone in Canada is a North American.

The events of 9/11 were not an American-only event. Though it was an attack on this country, I believe it was also an attack on the industrialized world in general. I would say the “civilized world,” But I don’t want to start a separate argument (so I haven’t said it, so don’t respond to it). It was the “have-nots” taking a stab at the “haves.” You can’t drop a bomb anywhere in NYC without hitting citizens of various countries. They attacked the World Trade Center, and they offended the world. Again, this theory is mostly my opinion, and not worth arguing about. Suffice it to say that the attack affects the whole world, not jus the US.

Though a few people in a few countries jumped for joy in the streets, I got the impression that the vast majority of the people in the world were appalled by this act. They realize it could have been done anywhere. And by attacking a major financial center, they are doing damage to more than just one country.

The nearest comparison our country has to offer to this event is the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. And it’s a pale comparison. That was a military attack, on military targets, with relatively few civilian casualties. The brunt of the 9/11 attacks were on civilians and infrastructure. Assuming the Pennsylvania plane was targeted at the White House, it would still have been a primarily civilian attack.

So nobody in the world has much to compare this event to. It’s scary. It’s appalling. The civilized world, as I think of it, including the vast majority of the world’s Muslim population, is against it. It was a pretty evil act. People in other countries (as well as here) have justified reasons for being unhappy with the US. But nothing justifies this.

So I think that, in a small way, people from other countries are uncomfortable with us remembering the event. Surely it has been seen on TV enough times. But now it’s part of history. and history needs to be remembered, in part so that you don’t let things happen again.

The event had big emotional impact on people in all parts of the world. But by remembering the event, or by paying tribute to the people, I don’t see reason to be offended. I think mostly the parts at the end are what riled people, but some don’t think unicycling is a worthy forum for such a “story”.

I ask you then. What is? Unicycling is a relatively frivolous activity. We can be goofy, but we can also be serious. And as Jamey has shown, we sure can tell a story.

Stay on top,
John Foss

73

Re: tastelessness at unicon

In article <johnfoss.aky4m@timelimit.unicyclist.com>,
johnfoss <johnfoss.aky4m@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote:
)
)For people who don’t “get” the whole Born in the U.S.A. thing: PEOPLE
)DON’T KNOW THE LYRICS! Lots of songs are like that, where people hear
)the chorus and never worry about the rest. I didn’t know what that song
)was about, even though I’ve heard it many times.

Clearly you didn’t grow up in Jersey.
I’ll give BRUUUUUCE this: he’s better than Bon Jovi.

) The casual listener
)doesn’t necessarily pay attention to the words. So they get “Born in the
)U.S.A.” as the message. I’m pretty sure Jamey used the song because he
)liked the way it sounded.

I’m sure that’s true; I’m just pointing out the way it’ll be interpreted
by someone who actually knows some of the lyrics.

)And I disagree that the song is about Americans being treated like dirt.
)It’s about one guy being treated like dirt, or Vietnam Vets being
)treated like dirt. Not all Americans. In that, the message of the song
)is that the U.S.A. is not perfect.

I would broaden that to say that it’s about the USA’s tendency to
treat the working class like dirt. (Most of Bruce’s songs are like
that–odd, considering he hasn’t worked a day in his life). But in
any case, it clearly is not about being happy and proud to be an
American, which was my original point.
-Tom

74

Re: More from Jamey-the guy that caused all this talk

I thought I made myself clear in my first post.

The point of this thread is whether certain subject matters have a place at UNICON, and that is what is being debated. It was your routine Jamey that was the catalyst for this as some saw it as tasteless/political. It is not a personal attack on yourself so please don’t take any of the comments that way.

I agree John that it was an appalling act and nothing does justify it but to say nobody in the world has much to compare to it… Do we need reminding of the two appalling acts nearly 60 years ago?

http://www.oneworld.org/news/world/bloomfield.html

Most of the victims were innocent civilians.

Gary

75

John,

You are a level headed person with whom I don’t always agree, but always respect. In this case, though, I think it is disingenuous to make obviously heated comments and then request no response.

This is simply not the case. Much of the rest of the world has much to compare it to. The maafa wherein thousands if not millions of Africans were killed en route to an existence of slavery and the “lucky” ones survived to live a life in chains; the Holocaust; the Armenia genocide; the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the Rape of Nanking; the slaughter of 500,000 Rwandans in a matter of weeks. It is estimated the during WW I 5 to 15 percent of the casualties were civilians, that during WW II it rose to 50 to 65 percent and that in conflicts around the world during the 1990s 90% of all casualties were civilian (Ehrenreich, “Blood Rites” and Chesterton, “Civilians in War”). Civilians have long done more than their share of suffering in conflict.

If people from other countries are uncomfortable with us remembering this event, and they should not be, it is because we spend so little time remembering the suffering of others. The suffering of Americans is no greater or lesser than the suffering of all those who have had war and terror inflicted upon them. If we are to grieve, and we should, we should do so quietly, privately and with dignity. The pain that we feel as a nation, the personal loss, is separate from the global impact this act of terror had.

I did not see the performance that has sparked this thread and I know that I will take flack, as have others similarly positioned who have commented. However, I have seen enough football half-time shows, olympic tributes to the fill-in-the-blank, and star-studded spectaculars to say simply that I think a unicycling tribute to the heros of 9/11 is tacky and cheapens our grief, at least it does mine. I know that will piss people off, but that is honestly how I feel.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

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Re: tastelessness at unicon

Raphael Lasar writes:
>However, I have seen enough football half-time shows, olympic
>tributes to the fill-in-the-blank, and star-studded spectaculars to say
>simply that I think a unicycling tribute to the heros of 9/11 is tacky
>and cheapens our grief, at least it does mine. I know that will piss
>people off, but that is honestly how I feel.
Hey, RL. Long time…

I agreed with much of your letter to John Foss, but here I am afraid I
don’t. You and several others mention that certain kinds of tributes seem
tacky. But rememer, it’s possible (likely) that what seems tacky to one
person seems more than appropriate to many others. I’m afraid you don’t
get to decide what makes art, what makes tribute, or what makes anything.
None of us does, really. Many great philosophers have gotten all tangled
up in the arguments about what makes art and so on. In the end, there is
no “right” answer. So who are we to decide whether Jamey’s tribute was a
tribute?

With that in mind, I’d say that you are free to look away or to share
opinions. But by the same token, people like Jamey are free to express
themselves however they choose (within certain ill-defined paramaters). We
don’t have to agree with their choice, and we don’t have to like it. [But
as you have read, many people did like it and told Jamey so.] But we can
respect what he was trying to do, and that’s enough.

David Stone
Co-founder, Unatics of NY
1st Sunday / 3rd Saturday
@ Central Park Bandshell
1:30 start time after 11/1/01

77

Raphael,

Thanks for posting your picture in the gallery http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/faces. You and I have communicated many times via email and this forum and I have often wondered who was at the other end of the wire. I have to say, you’re a fairly handsome sort, and pretty talented juggler it seems. My mental picture of you was off. Thanks for setting it straight.

Bruce

78

Bruce,

You’re a sly devil trying to cool things off with the above comments. My talents are few but precious, my looks are passable and I thank you for creating the gallery so we, especially those who don’t get to travel very far, could get a good look at each other.

Cheers,
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

79

HTML is SO picky!

Bruce, your link on this thread doesn’t work. All because of one little extraneous “.”.
So, here’s the working link:
The Many Faces of Unicyclist.com

80

For real??? For real!!!

Certainly, I am for real! Constructive and Criticism are oxymorons and at opposite ends of the scale. Criticism is accusative and usually evokes blocking emotional reactions that generally result in reducing performance quality and the motivation to change/improve. If you leave someone with a negative comment; i.e.: Yankee coach to pitcher Warren Spahn:“Don’t pitch it high and inside…”, that’s exactly what the mind focuses on; and, that’s exactly where the ball goes – high and inside. Oops! Home Run! The Yankees lost the World Series that year.

Like those who believe that practice makes “perfect”, (sorry, another misnomer), it only makes perfect what you practice. If one keeps practicing a skill the wrong way, it too becomes negative and self-defeating, resulting in getting good at doing something incorrectly (known as a bad habbit). Practice with evaluatiuon and correction might just get one closer to their goals.

The main difference between “criticism” and more positive ways of evaluating is a matter of attitude – confrontive vs nonconfrontive; work against vs work with; getting one’s own opinions off of one’s chest vs truly helping another.

I say again:“There is no such thing as constructive criticism; rather, it is really constrictive crudicism.”

Have One Wheelly Wonderful Weekend,
at1pe_uni