12 Responses to #28 A Plan to Save Mankind »»

Comments

1. donna
   Comment by donna | 2006/01/31 at 06:23:04

   hee, cool show…
   found myself wondering what happened to me?…. never wanted the ‘fairy tale’ wedding and that structured life with Prince Charming. so i did the adventures (still do) and have my memory box (still filling it)…
   and, guess what. now find myself wanting to wake up on my 50th birthday looking into the eyes of my Knight-in-slightly-tarnished-armour and ride off happily-ever-after into the next sunrise.

   guess i believe in fairy tales, after all

2. PodcastRant.com
   Comment by PodcastRant.com | 2006/01/31 at 11:11:21

   Projecting this week are we Cush? hehe. It’s called masturbation. Get on with it.

   I got married at 24 and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I’m 29 now and can’t imagine the cool and yes sex-filled experiences I would have lost if I didn’t get married. Not to imagine my kickass son.

   When I get down about what’s going on or where I’ve went wrong, I don’t include this part of my life as the problem. It’s us against the world. We have our own secret language and it’s awesome.

   I can understand for some this miight not be the case but I like hanging out with my wife more than any friend I’ve had in the past. I just don’t like people that much. Go figure.

   I like all of my “podcasting” friends. I don’t have to “interact” with them on a daily basis. My friends know that if they don’t come to my house, they’ll never see me or hear from me. I’m an ass that way. It takes all kinds, I know.

3. beffer
   Comment by beffer | 2006/01/31 at 11:28:09

   Great. Where the heck were you over 20 years ago when I was 22 and getting married? At least I held off on the kids until after 30… I’m still married to my PC, and we did have some adventures together in our salad days, traveling and sailing at least. But you are right, have fun while you’re young… before you know it, you wake up, your eyes are wrinkling, your hair is graying and youth has fled the premises.

   I just wish some wise 80 year old would now dispense some good advice to me for getting the best out of being middle aged. Perhaps you could find one to interview?

   You talked about the “wedding”, but you failed to mention its must-have accessory, the engagement ring. I thought they were a stupid waste of money and my husband and I skipped that step. It was amazing though the number of people, that when I told them that I was engaged, the first comment out of their mouths was “Let me see your ring!” When I said I didn’t have one, many sniffed and seemed to imply that I wasn’t really engaged. Needless to say, they didn’t get invited to the wedding. De Beers has done an outstanding marketing job, conning, oops, I mean convincing so many for the need of a diamond. It’s shiny and glittery, but still just a rock.

4. PodcastRant.com
   Comment by PodcastRant.com | 2006/01/31 at 11:48:17

   Ps. I know you’re not projecting just teasing you.

5. Administrator
   Comment by Administrator | 2006/01/31 at 12:58:43

   I thought I mentioned “the ring,” but you are right on track with that. The De Beers, in addition to engaging in colonialism, slavery, and torture, falsley inflated the value of diamonds through monopolizing the industry, holding back shipment of a mineral that is not actually rare, and developing a brilliant marketing campaign that included many Hollywood stars like Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Before mid-twentieth century, diamonds were not nearly as expensive or sought after as they were post.

   And hell, yes, I’m projecting. I’m extremely happy for people who have found contentment in life, but that is an exception to the rule. A recent survey indicated the number one cause of depression among married people was… marriage! So, congrats, but please check in on your 30th birthday for the pep talk you’ll need.

6. madame philosophe
   Comment by madame philosophe | 2006/02/05 at 19:59:58

   Hi Cush,

   Wow. What an inflammatory show. I’m kinda afraid to comment, because of all your caveats as I entered your website. (and as a gentle observation: is it just me that sees why people may not be throwing accolades about your show to iTunes that you feel you must hypnotize us to doing it??)

   I respect your opinion as being one, but your encapsulation of ALL women wanting a wedding and all men wanting to, to… to screw (I can say that online can’t I?) is so off the mark. It’s a sexist rant. I mean, to assume that men naturally are led/fooled by their private parts and women led/fooled into matrimony by their hormonal requirement to be mommies is alarmingly inaccurate. If I take your argument that all young women are fooled into the prince charming story as valid, I would ask you, don’t you think that men are fooled into believing the story that they are supposed to sow their wild oats? that “boys will be boys”? Isn’t that something that is spoonfed them too?

   I would challange you that that story is just as cruel a story as the PC story because it is taking advantage of men’s hormonal urges and reducing them to sperm bags. I can’t speak for all women, but I certainly don’t want to have an LTR with a sperm bag. I’m interested in the person; the sex is the icing on the cake. How else could a person stand another for years and years, since the sex may not last forever?

   I found a quote, know it’s a long one, a bit academic, and I hope you’ll be as patient with me as I’ve been in the time I spent downloading and listening to your show and take to heart the point I’m attempting to make here.

   In a book by Robert Wright called “The Moral Animal” (I don’t necessarily agree with his views 100%; am not trying to sell this book, but he makes a valuable point of what happens when we attempt to map one-to-one our gender roles to those in the animal kingdom, which I suggest you are doing), he writes (pg 46): “…male turkeys will avidly court a stuffed replica of a female turkey. In fact, a replica of a turkey’s head suspended six inches from the ground will generally do the trick. The male circles the head, does its ritual displays and then (confident, presummably that its performance was impressive) rises into the air and comes down approximately in the proximity of the female’s backside, which turns out not to exist. The more virile males will show such interest even when a wooden head is used, and a few can summon lust for a wooden head with no eyes or beak.”

   Later he writes (pg 53): “People may chuckle appreciatively at a male turkey that tries to mate with a poor rendition of a female’s head, but if you then point out that many a human male regularly gets aroused after looking at a two-dimensional representation of a nude woman, they don’t see the connection. After all the man surely knows that it’s only a photo he’s looking at; his behavior may be pathetic, but it isn’t comic…”

   To be fair to men, I feel I must include this from the following paragraph: ” …resistance to lumping humans and turkeys under one set of Darwinian rules has its points. Yes, our behaviour is under more subtle, presummably more “conscious,” control than is turkey behavior (I say: I hope that is the case) Men can decide not to get aroused by something, or at least can decide not to look at something they know will arouse them. Sometimes they even stick with those decisions…it is plainly true that the …options available to a human are unrivaled in the animal kingdom.”

   So what I am appealing to you for, is to think about your own gender constructs that have been fed to you by society, before you get all condescending about the Prince Charming/matrimony story.

   I am trusting that you and I are both on the same side: that we should (everyone, not just men, not just women) question what gender is and our decisions to adopt these sexist stories, whether they are good for us, whether they will bring us what we want out of life, and whether we want to perpetuate such models.

   If that is what you are saying, I am behind you all the way. Otherwise, I think you are being as much of a knucklehead as the 18 year old that believes she can’t be complete without her prince charming.

7. Ben
   Comment by Ben | 2006/02/06 at 12:25:54

   I would advise you to listen to Show #24 if you haven’t already. Of course Cush isn’t talking about ALL women; he’s delivering his message in a satirical way. Listen closely.

8. beffer
   Comment by beffer | 2006/02/06 at 14:21:03

   Dear gentle Madame,

   Please look up “irony” and “satire”. If you need an example, read “A Modest Proposal” by Swift (it’s a quick read and you can download the text for free off the internet.)

   Thank you,

   B.

9. LSPoorEeyorick
   Comment by LSPoorEeyorick | 2006/02/20 at 17:26:55

   Hey, Cush– isn’t it just as important to watch how the parents of your spousal possibility treat each other as it is to look at how they’ve aged? Everybody sags, everybody shrivels, everybody’s hair migrates to parts of the body that have no ostensible need for hair. But if your affianced has grown up in the shadow of parents who are cruel to each other, or are strapped in a marriage on an unlevel playing ground (i.e. one of them does significantly more legwork and the other expects it) it’s, in my opinion, extremely important to know about this and– even more crucial– to talk to them about it and see what they think of it. Much moreso than how they sag. We’re not immortal, you know.

   Incidentally, you’ve stated that all men are doing what they do in hopes of sex. I don’t think you were being ironic about this. Yes, perhaps this is the case for the majority of teenagers and peter-pan rock stars (and married people whose spouses aren’t willing to be as free with each other as they were with their one-night stands.) But there are a lot of people out there who don’t fall in your sexual venn diagram. Concrete example: I know a man whose wife has been ill for ten years and now that he’s retired he spends every waking moment nursing her and trying to make her smile. They aren’t able to physically have sex, but that isn’t stopping him from loving her or from caring for her every moment that they have left together. Just because something is your experience doesn’t mean it’s everyone else’s.

10. Administrator
    Comment by Administrator | 2006/02/21 at 12:46:07

    [quote]Hey, Cush– isn’t it just as important to watch how the parents of your spousal possibility treat each other as it is to look at how they’ve aged?[/quote]

    You are 100% correct! I couldn’t agree more, which is why I said that in the show.

    The listening police will let you off with a warning this time, but be careful out there.

11. Administrator
    Comment by Administrator | 2006/02/23 at 11:52:11

    Forgot to add: Maybe this wasn’t clear. It’s not just sex. I said said that men are driven by “pussy - whatever form it takes.” For many men that could be defined as not being alone. For others, it could mean finding their ideal of true love. It’s a motivation embeded in our procreration-centric DNA.

12. raymond
    Comment by raymond | 2006/04/02 at 18:38:25

    Loved the show so much and agreed with it so much that I made all my young (20ish) employees listen to it. All both that is, as we are a small company. I hope they learned the lessons you offer. I wish I had, but divorce gave me a second chance.

Leave a Reply »»

Name

Email

Website

• Comment Preview