The pursuit of happiness?
(Warning: naughty words below.)
The New York Post reports:
Lil Nas X executed an X-rated stunt during his Grammys performance Sunday, transforming his microphone into his penis, continuing the era of the on-screen peen.
While rocking the stage alongside rapper Jack Harlow, 24, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the 22-year-old “Old Town Road” rhymer, who was nominated for five Grammys this year, placed his mic at the center of his crotch and swung it around in a circle, pretending the device was his genitalia.
According to the Post Mr Nas X’s acrobatics were well-received by the audience.
“I can’t watch @LilNasX grab his dick anymore on the #GRAMMYs It’s not going anywhere. Just stop!” barked an annoyed audience member. “Well we know he has a dick because he grabbed it like A MILLION times during his performance,” spat another.
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The splendid title of this post is not by your Tatler, rather the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D!) who in his signature eponymous piece in the American Scholar in 1993(paywall) wrote the general decline of mores in our country is the result of
redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard . . .
The senator was writing specifically about rising violent crime in the nation, but his observation obviously applies to the culture as well, including modern popular music [sic], which mostly is not music, rather a melange of crushingly amplified percussion and electronic noise makers plus, louder still, a “singer” screaming explicit verses that kind of-sort of rhyme and concern, almost always, violent acts on the street and in the bed. Long ago, when your Tatler worked in record retailing, this stuff fell under the genre of “urban music” and probably still does, which reflects poorly on our cities, one might think.
Billions of dollars have been made by performers, mostly, but not exclusively black, producers and record companies churning out this god-awful stuff, consumed mostly and ironically by middle-class suburban white teenagers who apparently cannot get enough of it, stimulated as they are by the violent words and outrageous behavior of its perpetrators.
The problem for creators in this genre though is they peddle shock, but shock has a short shelf-life, quickly becoming status quo. Thus they must push the threshold of the unacceptable lower and lower to continue sating their well-healed and demanding customers and, of course, assure uninterrupted cash-flow. According to the Post however, Mr NAS X and his friends may have gone too far.
“I can’t watch @LilNasX grab his dick anymore on the #GRAMMYs It’s not going anywhere. Just stop!” barked an annoyed audience member. “Well we know he has a dick because he grabbed it like A MILLION times during his performance,” spat another.
Your Tatler however seriously doubts the limit has been reached because in these godless and morals-free times there are no limits, simply new avenues to go down in the pursuit of fresh depravity, as the late Senator Moynihan so presciently wrote thirty years ago.
Thanks to FWIT.
The Taos Tatler 