Roger O Green

“Bye, Felicia” and why it bugs me

“Felicia” makes an appearance at a raunchy post-performance party with the rappers at their hotel suite, which suddenly gets interrupted by two armed men knocking on the door.

Someone I know personally used the phrase “Bye, Felicia” in his blog. I’d seen the phrase before, and while I had no idea about its derivation – the cutting edge of recent pop culture phrases I’m not – I’d glommed on to the fact that it was a dismissive response.

One use might be to say it after US Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) lost the Florida GOP Presidential primary and was forced to give up his Oval Office aspirations. Or about any of other more than a dozen candidates who’ve dropped out of the race.

“Bye, Felicia” bugged me to an irrational degree, and I was curious to find out why.

Part of it, I suppose, was that it had become one of those cute “in the know” phrases that might have been clever, once upon a time, but had become irritating from groupspeak overuse. The NOT phenomenon from Saturday Night Live – “You’re very intelligent – NOT!” – for instance.

More than this, though, is The Daughter’s reporting that she hears it “every day” at school, usually as a taunt to shut down someone else’s conversation. Not exactly bullying, I guess, but definitely snark. I’m not big on snark, as I feel that it lowers the bar on an intelligent conversation, especially online. (“Intelligent online conversation”, I’m told, is an oxymoron.)

What IS the origin of “Bye, Felicia” anyway? From Know Your Meme:

“Bye, Felicia” is a memorable quote from the 1995 comedy film Friday [which I’ve never seen] which is often used online as a dismissive farewell.

Origin

On April 26th, 1995, the comedy film Friday was released, starring the characters Craig Jones (played by Ice Cube) and Smokey (played by Chris Tucker) as a pair of unemployed stoners who must find a way to pay a drug dealer $200 within 24 hours. In the film, a character named Felicia attempts to borrow a car and a marijuana cigarette from Smokey and Jones, causing Jones to say “Bye, Felicia.” On March 11th, 2007, YouTuber HyFlyer988 uploaded a clip of the scene, gathering over 870,000 views and 290 comments in the first eight years.

And it spread:

On December 7th, 2008, Urban Dictionary user pimpin’817 submitted an entry for “Bye, Felicia,” describing the phrase as a way to bid farewell to someone who is deemed unimportant. On October 27th, 2011, YouTuber Mamclol uploaded a video titled “Bye Felicia,” featuring the clip from Friday with an accompanying hip hop track about the character.

I asked The Wife if she had seen/heard the term. She had guessed that perhaps it was a sexual reference. Well, no. And yes.

In August 2015, online discussions about “Bye, Felicia” saw another notable resurgence after its inclusion in a scene from Straight Outta Compton, an American biopic film about the ’90s hip hop group N.W.A directed by F. Gary Gray, the same filmmaker behind the 1995 urban comedy movie and origin of the quote, Friday.

In the film, a minor female character named “Felicia” makes an appearance at a raunchy post-performance party with the rappers at their hotel suite, which suddenly gets interrupted by two armed men knocking on the door and looking for their friend by the same name. After a brief moment of confrontation, members of the group find Felicia giving oral sex to Eazy-E, who eventually proceeds to push her out of the hotel room by the head. As the door slams behind, Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson, Jr.) drops the line “Bye Felicia” in a direct nod to the now-famous quote from Friday.

While the film was generally met with critical acclaims upon its release, both the scene and the line were brought up by several film critics and hip hop bloggers for its abashedly misogynistic, slut-shaming undertone.

Is the character sexist, or is the movie? A conversation for another day.

You won’t see me using “Bye, Felicia”. Since my antipathy predated my knowledge of the origin, it must be the flippant, offhand disdain of its use. Its derivation has merely solidified my irritation.

Friends of APL annual meeting; Chuck Miller talk to follow

You are invited to attend the annual meeting of the Friends of the Albany Public Library on Wednesday, May 18 at 7 p.m. It will be held at the Pine Hills branch at 517 Western Ave, between West Lawrence and North Allen Street.

Whether or not you are a member, you are welcome to attend. Of course, we invite you to become contributor, at only $15 per year. The Friends provide programming for the library nearly every week, a book review, an author talk, or special event. The organization also contributes money to the library for events such as the Summer Youth Program. At the meeting, there will be some some brief reports, the election of new officers, and an award.

At about 7:15, there will be a presentation by photographer Chuck Miller, a vociferous blogger for the Albany Times Union, who has written about ghost buildings, Albany Patroons, music, trivia, and much more. The topic: how to write a blog for 7 years and keep it fresh.

The Berrigans: Those Troublesome Priests

The Berrigans continued to be troublemakers, including in the anti-nukes movement.

When I first went to college in 1971, I was pulling away from my “traditional” Christian roots. At the same time, I was fascinated by two Catholic priests, the Berrigans, who were fighting against the Vietnam War in provocative ways.

Separately and together, Philip and Daniel Berrigan, with a coterie other, mostly Catholic, protesters, were involved in several antiwar activities. The Berrigans and seven others:

…used homemade napalm to destroy 378 draft files in the parking lot of the Catonsville, Maryland, draft board on May 17, 1968. This group, which came to be known as the Catonsville Nine, issued a statement after the incident:

“We confront the Roman Catholic Church, other Christian bodies, and the synagogues of America with their silence and cowardice in the face of our country’s crimes. We are convinced that the religious bureaucracy in this country is racist, is an accomplice in this war, and is hostile to the poor.”

In retrospect, the trial of the Catonsville Nine was significant because it “altered resistance to the Vietnam War, moving activists from street protests to repeated acts of civil disobedience, including the burning of draft cards.”

And that surely included me, as I was one of 12 people who was arrested at an antiwar demonstration at IBM Poughkeepsie. What I failed to mention in that account, or in its follow-up were a few details.

Earlier that week in 1972 was a demonstration near the Kingston draft board, which I wrote about. What I FAILED to mention was that I slipped my draft card under the door. I realize that burning it would have been safer (smarter), but it was a Kilroy was here moment, which probably helped get me jammed up with my draft board later that year.

The other thing I just didn’t remember is that one of the books I lent friend Alice while she was in jail for eight days was The Berrigans, “the famous special issue of HOLY CROSS QUARTERLY with original articles…Now with additional essays.” It excluded only a piece by Father Andrew Greeley, who was critical of the Berrigan brothers and would not allow his piece to be reprinted.

I know that this was one of the books because I still have my copy. “Alice” is written in pencil on the front cover, and her full name printed in pen on the inside front cover.

Clearly, the Berrigans were huge influences in my life. Philip Berrigan and his wife, former nun Elizabeth McAlister, came to my college in the mid-1970s; they married in 1970, although the marriage was not revealed until 1973, as he was still a priest.

The Berrigans continued to be troublemakers, including in the anti-nukes movement. Philip died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 79. Daniel died on April 30, 2016 at the age of 94.

LINKS

Daniel Berrigan’s mea culpa

“His World Was Always Filled with Such Beauty”: Frida Berrigan on Her Uncle, Priest Daniel Berrigan

Frida Berrigan: Give Your Children a Conscience Instead of Material Possessions

The New Yorker: Postscript: Daniel Berrigan, 1921-2016

Huffington Post: The Life and Death of Daniel Berrigan

Common Dreams: How Friends and Family Remember Daniel Berrigan

The Intercept: Daniel Berrigan, a Leader of Peaceful Opposition to Vietnam War, Inspired a Generation of Activists

New York Times obituary:

The Rev. Daniel J. Berrigan, a Jesuit priest, and poet whose defiant protests helped shape the tactics of opposition to the Vietnam War and landed him in prison, died Saturday [April 30] in New York City. He was 94.

The United States was tearing itself apart over civil rights and the war in Southeast Asia when Father Berrigan emerged in the 1960s as an intellectual star of the Roman Catholic “new left,” articulating a view that racism and poverty, militarism and capitalist greed were interconnected pieces of the same big problem: an unjust society.

Father Berrigan; his brother Philip, a Josephite priest; and their allies took their case to the streets with rising disregard for the law or their personal fortunes. A defining point was the burning of Selective Service draft records in Catonsville, Md.

Paul Simon – Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard
Lyrics

In a couple of days they come and
Take me away
But the press let the story leak
And when the radical priest
Come to get me released
We was all on the cover of Newsweek

R is for Red

Modern surveys show red is the color most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love and joy.

Red, as Wikipedia notes, is “the color at the end of the spectrum of visible light next to orange and opposite violet.”

It’s also both one of the “additive primary colors of visible light, along with green and blue”… AND “one of the subtractive primary colors, along with yellow and blue, of the.. traditional color wheel used by painters and artists.

“Since red is the color of blood, it has historically been associated with sacrifice, danger, and courage.

“Modern surveys in the United States and Europe show red is also the color most commonly associated with heat, activity, passion, sexuality, anger, love, and joy.

“In China and many other Asian countries, it is the color of happiness.”

Of course, most STOP lights and stop signs are red. This means that RED is a contradiction. Action and stopping. Anger and joy.

I thought I’d list some RED songs. The links to the titles are descriptions of the songs; the links to the artists are the recordings. The chart action refers to the Billboard (US) pop charts.

Red and Blue
Dave Clark Five (#89 in 1967)

Red Red Wine
Neil Diamond (#62 in 1968)
UB40 (#34 in 1984, #1 in 1988)

Red Roses for a Blue Lady
Vic Dana (#10 in 1965)
Dean Martin

Red Rubber Ball
Cyrkle (#2 in 1966)
Seekers

Red Sails in the Sunset
Bing Crosby (1935)
Nat King Cole (#24 in 1951)
Tab Hunter (#57 in 1957)
Platters (#36 in 1960)
Fats Domino (#35 – and #24 soul – in 1963)

ABC Wednesday – Round 18

Trump could be President

Which path will save their collective hides? They don’t know yet.

Chris found my last Ask Roger Anything to pose this:

Why the **** doesn’t it bother Republicans that rational respected leaders of their own party have branded Trump as dangerous?

Two presidents, a presidential nominee and the speaker of the house won’t endorse him. Romney gave a beautiful and impassioned speech on why Trump would be terrible for the nation.

Why don’t they even listen to their own?

Because Donald J. Trump could be President, as I first suggested on January 27.

Because the people who are supporting Trump don’t care about what the Republican leadership thinks.

Because the GOP leadership has been, depending on the particular voter’s POV – and more than one of these can be true:
* are TOO liberal, RINOS (Republicans In Name Only), who actually (occasionally) compromised with the President; when I saw John Boehner and Paul Ryan so dubbed, I realized there was an almost an impossibly obstructionist standard that must be met
* are too financially reckless; George W. Bush paid for the Iraq war, in particular, on a credit card
* are too corporatist, beholden to the rich and powerful, exporting jobs abroad
* are not securing the borders
* are doing too little on the national security front
* are too socially conservative on issues such as gay marriage and even abortion
* are too religious, in that judgmental way
* are too political correct
* are not racist enough
* are letting the world change too quickly
* are not entertaining enough

It’s a dance, really. The Republican party was thrilled when Donald Trump generated interest in their brand in the early debates. The August 2015 debates were watched by FOUR TIMES more voters than the debates in 2011. So, when Trump inevitably abandoned his campaign, as he had always done before, the GOP figured it could use that pixie dust on a more conventional candidate, and the voters would pivot to a Rubio or, shades of 1992, yet another Bush.

It’s not unlike the Tea Party, that the conventional Republicans, such as former House Speaker John Boehner, thought they could control, but it was the Tea Party that ended up controlling them. Obviously, Boehner could not, and he ended up resigning.

Even as Trump said more and more outrageous things, there was a good chunk of the Republican electorate who were not repelled by his comments, but embraced him, because he told it “like it is,” even when it was internally illogical, not to mention racist, sexist and xenophobic.

Virtually every pundit in 2015 said that Trump had a ceiling, of 20 or 30% of the Republicans. This proved to be true when the number of candidates was in double digits, but the numbers of candidates got smaller, his numbers got larger.

If he WINS the presidency, and I think he can, especially against Hillary – polling in May is just not that definitive – then he might make it difficult for a governor or a senator or a House member to distance from him. If he LOSES, the GOP could lose the Senate.

Oh crap, what DO they do? Stand up against their party’s very likely nominee? Will that be seen as a moral stance, or as the action of a party hack, out of touch with the electorate? Which path will save their collective hides? They don’t know yet.

In some ways, I think Donald Trump in 2016 is like Barack Obama in 2008, with one slight difference. BHO represented the hope of America; “Yes, we can.” It was seen as proving that America is better than it had been. Hey, America’s not racist; we elected a black man and watched Oprah to boot. But he failed to solve racism, and the world is a scary place. The social experiment, electing the black guy, did not work out.

DJT is nostalgia, mixed with fear. “Let’s Make America Great Again.” Great, again. It was great at some unspecified period in the past, when America’s dominance and supremacy were not questioned. “Girls were girls, and men were men.” THOSE were the days. We want to get back there, or as far back as we can while keeping our smartphones. Even if he’s insincere, and is now hiding his views on minorities better now.

The Republican leadership can say no, but if the American people say yes, then the party bosses become all but irrelevant, even more insignificant than they had before. They want to back the right horse, but they can’t tell yet who that will be.

On the other hand, Leon Wolf from Red State, a conservative website, notes:

The temptation is going to be to go numb to all of this. That when the next person who we should have counted on stuns us all by actually suggesting that Donald Trump is fit to be President of the Untied States, that we just write it off with barely a second thought. There comes a certain point where you feel like you just can’t allow yourself to continue to be surprised and hurt when another person that you once respected shows that their judgment and principles forever tainted by the love of the office they hold.

Don’t. Going numb to the corruption wrought by Trump is what got us in this mess. Trump – and support for Trump – must not become the new normal in the conservative movement. Maybe it will become normal in the Republican Party, which ceased to stand for anything meaningful as an institution a long time ago, but it can’t become normal for the actual conservative voters who believe in things like limited government, equality under the law, free markets, free trade, and basic public decency.

The only way this won’t become the new normal is if you allow yourself to be hurt every time someone caves to this perversion of conservatism and the Republican party. Be horrified. Be aghast. Feel betrayed. Ask aloud to yourself, “How could you?” Ask aloud to THEM, by calling, writing, or emailing, “How could you?”

Because the minute you stop feeling that, the closer you become to assimilating it and accepting it yourself. And if that happens, the conservative movement as we know it dies.

See, much of the right is no happier with The Donald than the left is.