{"id":8095,"date":"2011-07-07T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T10:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=8095"},"modified":"2020-09-24T21:48:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T01:48:04","slug":"groundbreaking-research-by-rth-labs-earring-declared-a-sign-of-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/groundbreaking-research-by-rth-labs-earring-declared-a-sign-of-weakness\/","title":{"rendered":"Groundbreaking Research by RTH Labs: Earring Declared a Sign of Weakness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The following piece was submitted by Townsman E. Pluribus Gergely with funding and research support provided by RTH Labs.<\/em><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u93DV7Q9bks?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Hi Oats,<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m writing to apologize for not writing a single response to your recent&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/critical-re-upgrade-husker-du\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Husker Du<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/critical-re-upgrade-husker-du\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Main Stage posting<\/a>. It was beautifully executed. That said, Husker Du never  did a thing for me. Despite the fact that I&#8217;ve never heard a single thing  they&#8217;ve ever done, I just know they have to be bad based on the fact that  they&#8217;re from Minneapolis, Minnesota and their look is not to my liking. Anybody  that collectively looks like that has to suck.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of Look, I stumbled across something a few days ago that made my hair  stand on end. On the evening of July 4th, me, the ball and chain, and the brats  headed over to our friends&#8217; house to check out the neighborhood fireworks from  their porch. Fireworks never did anything for me nor did they ever do a damn  thing for my buddy, so we went inside his house and watched TV while the women  gossiped and kept an eye on the brats. Whilst getting tanked, we stumbled upon &nbsp;<em>Festival<\/em>, a documentary of the &#8217;64-&#8217;65 Newport Folk Festivals, on the Ovation  channel (gotta love cable!). Lo and behold, there&#8217;s <strong>Donovan<\/strong>. Right, Donovan,  no big deal. But as the camera drew closer, it was readily apparent that he was  wearing an earring.<\/p>\n<p>Not good.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>My father liked the sound of his voice more than anything in the world. And he  also loved monologuing at the dinner table. His favorite themes were table  manners. the difference between northern and southern Germans, subhumans who  major in Education, and the earring, not &#8220;earrings&#8221; mind you, but <em>the earring<\/em>:  &#8220;No self respecting man should ever wear any jewelry whatsoever, no ifs, ands,  or buts.&nbsp; And an earring worn by a man is the worst of all offenses. Absolutely  and positvely a sign of weakness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You know I&#8217;m married, right? Well now you know why I don&#8217;t wear a wedding  ring. You hear that kind of shit on a routine basis for 20 some years, you  figure you might catch AIDS from wearing a wrist watch. You can&#8217;t imagine what  was going through my mind when Hrundi showed up at my house with a faux early  Beatles\/Stones Speidel bracelet.<\/p>\n<p>Granted, it&#8217;s thoroughly insane, but I can&#8217;t get rid of it. I also can&#8217;t get rid  of the fact that I find myself more or less in line with his train of thought  when I analyze those that chose to go the earring route:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Donovan: Here&#8217;s a guy who was clearly not going to make it as a D+ Dylan. Wearing the cap, doing the harmonica holder thing, the unkempt hair&#8230;none of  that was working. He hit bottom and went for the earring. Interestingly  enough, that went first when <strong>Mickie Most<\/strong> helped him reinvent himself as  Britain&#8217;s first flower power rep. Most also knew that the earring was a sign of  weakness, something most girls\/women couldn&#8217;t relate to, even when it was  jiggling from a freak.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Keith<\/strong>: 1967 is turning out to be a really bad year. Shades of the awfulness  began in 1966 with the recording of <em>Between the Buttons<\/em>, an LP that had a lot  of odds and ends that didn&#8217;t really amount to anything. That turd is followed  up with yet another stinker, <em>Satanic Majesties<\/em>, which is nothing more than a  D+ <em>Pepper<\/em>. It&#8217;s also a first for the Stones. Peers are laughing at them. Best therapeutic move? Take as many drugs as possible and head to Morrocco to  forget about everything. It was around this same time that Keith&#8217;s Look changed  drastically. Again, in a moment of weakness, when Keith thought it was all  over, he made a last-ditch effort to turn himself into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.godammit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/keith_richards_portrait_980.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New Gypsy Earring  Dangling Keef<\/a>. And God bless his heart because the sheer coolness of that  dangling shark tooth provided me with some much needed skepticism when it came  to dear old dad&#8217;s &#8220;truths.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.musicobsession.com\/Pictures\/h\/o\/hollies146918.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alan Clarke<\/a><\/strong>: 1969, The Hollies release &#8220;He Ain&#8217;t Heavy, He&#8217;s My Brother.&#8221; Massive. Makes the Top 10 everywhere, including places like the Isle of Malta. The band celebrates the victory by Hershey squirting for three years. No hits,  no drugs, the money is gone, and worst of all, Clarke can&#8217;t get laid. Hard to  believe, but in his heyday, the homely little fire hydrant supposedly nailed  more women that <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thedailyrock.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/gene-simmons.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Gene Simmons<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iorr.org\/iorr28\/bill.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bill Wyman<\/a><\/strong> combined, including a 1964 <strong>Marianne  Faithful<\/strong>. When one goes from that to rubber gloves. Vaseline, and gigs at  Dorney Park, things are very weak indeed. Hence, Clarke&#8217;s hoop and godawful  curly perm. Granted, the look was mildly influential, but some things really  are objectively nauseating:<\/li>\n<\/ol><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nY31ZH6hAFI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Trinities always have some sort of indefinable power, and I think my trinity of  examples clearly illustrates why the pierced lobe serves as a warning signal to  others of one&#8217;s own psychological black hole. You think about all that and get back to me.<\/p>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>E. Pluribus<\/p>\n<p>P.S. If you have any info about that whole right\u2013left ear\/gay\u2013not gay  thing, I&#8217;d really appreciate it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following piece was submitted by Townsman E. Pluribus Gergely with funding and research support provided by RTH Labs. Hi Oats, I&#8217;m writing to apologize for not writing a single response to your recent&nbsp;Husker Du Main Stage posting. It was beautifully executed. That said, Husker Du never did a thing for me. Despite the fact <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/groundbreaking-research-by-rth-labs-earring-declared-a-sign-of-weakness\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342,344],"tags":[126,77],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}