The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Donal's picture

    Phone Sex + 3 Minutes

    By Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:07am | Arts & Entertainment



    Update: Rather than push Stardust's piece down, I'm updating here. Mother Jones has a photo essay on phone sex operators, which will ... probably not be so good for business. The woman above writes:

    I'm 60 years old, I have a BA in cultural anthropology from Columbia University, and I've been married for 25 years. I make twice the money I made in the corporate world. I work from home; the money transfers into my bank account daily. I'm Scheherazade: If I don't tell stories that fascinate the pasha, he will kill me in the morning.

    Could be good for recruiting, though. Another:

    I think if all women did phone sex before they lost their virginity, they would make much better choices.


    One of my old flames told me about sitting next to a stripper on Metro one day. I have no idea how her profession came up in conversation (So what do you do? - I strip - Oh, really? What's it like?), but the woman told her that the job was easy - you just had to hate men. I always remember that when I see any representation of a stripper.

    But while some of the folk in this essay seem to look down on their callers, most seem to connect in some way, even in spite of themselves. Some even feel they are performing a great service. Sounds like any business to me.

    Original: Watch this and tell me who were you rooting for.

    Topics: 
    Arts & Entertainment

    Comments

    I was rooting for the Jedi, the green wand, but I see this could go on forever--almost as long as those dumb Star Wars prequels, so already I'm bored.


    by Ramona on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:20am

    Why would you root for the aggressor?


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:29am

    How can you not root for the aggressor?  They're all aggressors.


    by Ramona on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:39am

    Which one was the aggressor?  I kept going to the sheets of granite and marble; sure would love some new countertops!


    by we are stardust on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:40am

    I assumed the armed fellow chasing the other guy was the aggressor.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:45am

    But wasn't the other guy--the black guy--an earlier agressor who didn't kill within the alloted three minutes?  And that's why he's now being chased?  Just as the agressor in the film is going to be chased by the black-booted girl, who, if she doesn't kill him within three minutes, will then become the victim of another aggressor?  Pretty clever, I'd say.  I guess the answer is, we can't really root for any of them.  (The next question is, why are they all following the old guy's directions?  What's in it for them?)


    by Ramona on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:52am

    But you didn't know that until the end. And the first guy had a saber while the other had to find one. The old guy is casting for American Idol.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:55am

    But I had to watch it to the end before I answered your question.  I just threw the Jedi thing in there because the guy had a green light saber.  The guy who found the saber knew where to look because he had killed that guy earlier--he just didn't do it in three minutes, which is why he was now the hunted.  Round and round they go.  But why??  WHY???   (Is this film clip a part of a larger piece, or is this it?)


    by Ramona on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 11:17am

    I don't think he killed that guy, or he would have taken it then. I think this is a short effort by a young filmmaker. And I think it would have been better without introducing light sabers.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 11:23am

    Or the Monty Python "off with his head" image.  Interesting,  though, and it's fun to guess at what's going on.  When the last guy came back to his master he wasn't carrying either saber, was he?  That would have been proof that he had actually killed the other guy.  This Three Minute challenge is never-ending, is what I got from it.   

    But the problem with me and short pieces like this is that I want a prologue and an epilogue.  I want it tidied up.  That's why Indy films almost always leave me cold.  My response is usually "Huh???"


    by Ramona on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 11:49am

    American Idiot, maybe?


    by we are stardust on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:45pm

    Oh, say it isn't so, Stardust.

    I recently watched a couple of hours of HGTV design shows, and the demand for granite countertops (caused by the relentless marketing of same) will surely end in granite becoming an endangered species. So sad. As unquarried, uncut and therefore unpolished granite asks only to be left alone in its natural habitat -- please, let's "save the granites."Wink


    by wws on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:10pm

    I repent!  I repent!  And only yesterday someone was horrified by my hideous and baggy Walmart shorts.  I imagined my guest was disgusted by how ugly they werel but no!  I had to hear a lecture about how many millions of little hydrocarbons had died to produce them!  O; how does a person live an examined wardrobe and kitchen?  My current counter tops I made out of old oak flooring from the original Fort Lewis college buildings in Durango, CO, stripping and sanding and piecing them together.  I swear not to replace them!


    by we are stardust on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:18pm

    I love your countertops!  But you do know that "house hunters" would take one look and mutter, "ugh, no granite countertops".  I've personally grown to hate the idea of granite countertops, just because of that snooty pooh-poohing of anything other than.  Sheeple, please!


    by Ramona on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:22pm

    Great adaptive reuse of floors, Stardust. The cottage I'm living in has countertops that are similar to those you describe, made from recycled, stripped, laminated and oiled maple bowling alley flooring. Lovely to look at; a pain to keep in pristine condition. A middle ground I admire and have used twice is recycled, cut-to fit-unpolished laboratory table slate -- basically impervious to damage and easier on the eye than all those speckles or laminated layers. But how I digress. This thread is about something else. (Sorry, Donal.)


    by wws on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:43pm

    Problem is that when wws slides her glasses down the counter they start to hook into the backsplash.

    I took up the hard pine flooring and made the window and mirror trim in our bathroom.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:54pm

    I was rooting for a new choreographer.  Every time a swordsman gratuitously turns his back on his opponent...


    by miguelitoh2o on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:09pm

    Yeah, when the choreography of a fight breaks the suspension of disbelief, it is time for something new.


    by EmmaZahn on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 1:06pm

    Dammit, Donal.  I want my three minutes back.


    by wabby on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:14pm

    LOL!


    by Ramona on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:15pm

    Best.Comment.Possible.   ;~) 

    But did you notice the whole video counter was only at 2:36 or something when the old dude told 'the winner' that he'd spent 3:18?  They used to experiments about a film's content being able to accordion time for us.


    by we are stardust on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:25pm

    You'll have to fight for it.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:25pm

    Well, okay.  I think I know where I can find a light saber.  But, if I'm not back in two minutes and fifty-nine point nine-nine seconds, start without me.


    by wabby on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:48pm

    I'll go nerf if you will.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 12:55pm

    Deal.


    by wabby on Wed, 01/12/2011 - 12:44am

    Donal, I love it that your headline immediately follows Wolfrum's.


    by acanuck on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 1:56pm

    I wrote that before the Phone Sex part was added, but maybe it still makes sense.


    by acanuck on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 4:27pm

    I do not understand the excercise.

    Is there an active lightsaber lobby group in D.C.?

    And is this a picture of Palin in loungewear after a difficult day of pontification?


    by Richard Day on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 7:24pm

    Lightsabers don't kill people, Jedi do.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 7:38pm

    I was rooting for the two warriors to join forces and kill The Old Man.  It's the lefty in me.  Why didn't they do that?  It seems so obvious.


    by Dan Kervick on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:02pm

    One was a Republican and the other a Democrat.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:13pm

    More likely they are two clueless and easily manipulated Democrats.


    by Dan Kervick on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:37pm

    I'd love to know, Donal, what your purpose in posting this addition of the slide-show of sex phone operators might be.  I went through the whole show, and it's clear that you chose the most revealing image, and also the least attractive, 60-year-old woman to feature.  You then chose a quote from a stranger through your old flame saying that being a stripper was easy, as long as you hated men.  Strippers, of course, aren't phone sex operators, nor are either just any business. The juxtaposition has me reeling, frankly.

    I'll likely be be the only one admitting being upset, or in fact be the only one here who's upset.  Perhaps the same woman who found my objection's to the size of DD's nude blockprint of the breast-eyed Fury hard to take, and it'll be suggested that if my eye offends me, I should pluck it out.  Or others will come and make sick jokes about the force of gravity having its way with this womans breasts and thighs or something. 

    Given other economic opportunites and more self-worth, I can hardly think that many young children grew up thinking that they wanted their photos to be depicted as sex operators on Dagblog, or for that matter, Mother Jones.


    by we are stardust on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:07pm

    I found the photo essay compelling, particularly the story about a 60 yo cultural anthropologist that can earn twice as much talking sexy as working at, "other economic opportunities," which with four million discouraged workers aren't all that great. If you don't like it, them's the breaks.


    by Donal on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:24pm

    I didn't watch the video.   But as a 51 year-old former college professor with a PhD in Philosophy, who now works in the corporate world and spends many a day on the phone holding the hands of various customers, and making somewhat more than I was able to make as a college professor, I can entirely relate to this woman's choices and line of work.


    by Dan Kervick on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 10:53pm

    Just for the record, I have a friend who used to be a stripper, and she doesn't hate men.


    by miguelitoh2o on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 11:59pm

    When I saw the picture in this article, I honestly thought someone had photoshopped Ron Jeremy's head on a female body until I read the article. Is this bad?


    by Orion on Thu, 01/13/2011 - 12:09am