Gossip

Does he have multiple partners?

Is he into BDSM?

Does he enjoy hurting women physically and emotionally?

Does he use women and dump them, leaving a trail of broken hearts?

Does he use non disclosure agreements and lawyers to keep women quiet, so that he can continue his predatory behavior?

Is his secrecy merely a quirky neurosis, or is there really something to hide?

Is the most recent big announcement real? Or a sham to distract us from the truth?

If rumors proved true, would I still be a fan of his music or other performances, or would I condemn them along with him? 

Was my fandom ever about anything other than his talent and compatibility of musical taste? Did I require him to play a particular role in my fantasy life that is not possible in the face of these rumors?

Why else do I want to know about these rumors?

Is it titillating?

Am I Sir Galahad off to rescue damsels in distress from soulless cads?
Is that a good role for me to play?
Were they really damsels in distress, or selfish social climbers who hoped to take advantage of a celeb?

And why do I want to talk about them?

What if Hitler had written a beautiful song, would it be wrong to sing it?

Recently, a celeb was fired, because of allegations about his personal life:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2809062/Sacked-radio-host-Jian-Ghomeshi-file-50m-lawsuit-against-CBC-fired-unbecoming-BDSM-lifestyle-three-women-make-violent-sex-assault-claims-against-star.html

BLGTQ people have gone to great lengths to bring their relationships out of the closet, and to be accepted. Should polygamy/polyamory be more broadly accepted? When is BDSM acceptable? Where do we draw a line about what is not acceptable?  Should celebs be held to a higher standard because they are role models? Or are they inherently corrupted by their wealth and power, so that we are doomed to find them all scandal ridden and behaving worse than civilians? Is there inherently an abuse of power when a  celeb seeks to be a dom over a non celeb, because the non celeb will feel compelled to do things to please the celeb? Is there inherently abuse of power in most cases when men are doms over women, because men are typically larger, more aggressive, and control the money in a relationship?

 In general, when is private behavior relevant to a job?

A sports player, Ray Rice, who abused a woman, has also been in the news. His professional career was also ruined.  Perhaps this was at least in part because, as a celeb, he is viewed as needing to be an example.

But what about non-celebs? When should they lose their job over private behavior? Should it have to be an actual crime? 

And a final note: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Wouldn't it be better to let the women talk, rather than risk the explosion of their bottled up fury?  What if one of them committed suicide?

Is "Noël" porn?

Is Noel Porn?

Since my most recent blog, I’ve been thinking about this.

David Foster finds this very shy, timid, deferential guy with a beautiful voice.  The guy is only 17.  He seems to come from a good family.  He does what he’s told.  He records Christian music, even though he’s not a traditional Christian, but doesn't dare say so.

Later, as the guy gets older, we start to see him a bit more clearly.  He grew up in an urban environment in L.A.  He may be spiritual, but is clearly not a conservative Christian. Rumors start flying that he’s not monogamous, that he’s kinky.  We don’t know whether those rumors are true, but we see more and more clearly that he’s an extremely sexual person.

But isn’t that common amongst religious people? Isn’t there a sexual intensity about charismatic Christians?

As a person who studied yoga, I became aware that mystics commonly advise celibacy, because physical sex weakens the mental orgasm that accompanies an intense mystical experience.  Mystics are people who value that mental experience enough that they happily forego the physical experience to get the mystical one.

I had a roommate in college who became a born again Christian who insisted that the relationship with God could be an erotic one.  I read an academic article once quoting the reported sensations that a nun felt while praying intensely.  The author opined that these sensations were in fact an orgasm.  At least one TV evangelist, recently, has been involved in a sex scandal.  One is loudly proclaiming that promiscuity is normal amongst straight men and should not be considered sinful or shocking.

So David Foster puts out this album, featuring this young man, who, as we now start to see, is in fact an intensely sexual being.  The passion in his voice hypnotizes us.  It intensifies our own spiritual experience in listening to religious music, because spirituality is in fact intensely wrapped up in sexuality.

Sex is never mentioned.  The album sounds pure as the driven snow, in a context where many traditional Christians, following the example of the staid St. Paul, believe that sex is dirty or evil.

And yet wasn’t sex the message that was both sent and received with Noël?

Is there not a kinky or even obscene aspect to an album, if that album is dishonestly sexual?  

Again, are we not hypocritical if we become shocked to consciously discover a sexual aspect of the singer, if we were subliminally enjoying it all along?

And, then, Josh complains of middle aged women fondling him when he goes into the audience during concerts.  Maybe he shouldn't be surprised.

Kerfuffle in Grobania -- Josh steps on the Red Carpet with Kat

Oh, my!  Just when we started saying that twitter was getting dull, just when we started saying we were going to do something else, BOOM!  Drama erupts.  Josh is dating!  And who?  Who? 

She has big breasts.  There were leaked nude photos. (I’m not going to put up the link to the nude photos.  I think it should be crime to leak nude photos without the permission of the model) A woman previously connected with Josh is “devastated.”

Some fans react negatively.  Josh wasn’t who they thought, they say. 

Some reactions here, myself.

Young women often don’t understand the implications of posing nude.  We saw that, sadly, when Vanessa William’s Miss America crown was stolen from her, because nude photos got leaked, by some unscrupulous person; after she had lied and said there were no nude photos.

I remember that incident.  

I learned then that young female performers are often persuaded to do nude photos by photographers who don’t care at all for the performer, but only about earning some extra bucks.  And, once the photos are leaked, they can never be undone.

As a result of reading about this, I would never let a lover or my husband photograph me nude.  I was horrified that a nurse did it after childbirth and I took the photos to be developed by a male stranger without knowing that those photos were on the film.  Fortunately, we don’t have film any more.

We saw another curious example recently, where Miley Cyrus provoked great consternation with her “twerking.”  Miley cited Sinead O’Connor as her inspiration.  The older singer had done something similar.

Sinead then wrote an open letter to Miley urging Miley not to follow Sinead’s example.  http://music-mix.ew.com/2013/10/02/sinead-oconnor-miley-cyrus-open-letter/  Sinead later felt that she had been exploited by men who were making much more money than she  was — and pimped, essentially.  

Will the younger woman listen?  Probably not.  The young usually don’t.

Does that mean she’s a bad person?  

So quick the call that she is “trash” or a “slut.”  

This issue has been discussed in the press, the concept of slut shaming.
http://t.co/lvndE5Tqay 
http://t.co/BBbYBapZa6  

Women’s cruelty to each other is a huge feminist issue.  It forces women into the arms of men rather than allowing us to unite together for our common good.  

Men call them cat fights.  Men fear groups of women because of this cruel behavior and shut women out of positions of power and influence to avoid having to deal with the phenomenon.  Our emotional reactions to each other give men power over us, relegate us to second class citizens. 

I would submit that we must use our enlarged brains to overcome the base instinct to scratch each others’ eyes out.  That instinct is our downfall, our greatest weakness, the bars to our prison.

=============

Now, on to Josh.  

Who did we think he was?  Why would anyone be disappointed?

Let’s see,  He’s slender, awkward, nerdy, musical, shy, deferential, considerate.  He speaks in a high voice, even tho his singing voice is deep.  It’s easy to think he might be asexual or gay.  Even though he’s made pretty clear that he’s a horny, straight guy, we might not have entirely believed him.

Why do we want him to be asexual or gay? 

That leads to the question of who we are.

Let me speculate.  As women approaching or in menopause, has sex become more difficult, physically? Do we long for someone who wants and needs us, but doesn’t need to do that?  Have we lost someone who did love and need us, and Josh, understanding us by singing TWYA, seemed to step into the void?  

What was it about his voice that drew us?  Wasn’t it at least partly that overpowering emotion of miserable longing?  Did we hope that somehow he could produce that sound we craved, that sound of someone who wanted and needed us, without actually having a strong sex drive?

Yet we watch Josh perform, and he sometimes becomes aroused as he sings.  The iheart radio concert in 2012 was a notable example.  I was mesmerized watching that happen, but equally mesmerized by the way his voice got even more beautiful when he was aroused — when he sang “She Came Through the Fair” like that.  The passion really came through.

Doesn’t the particular intonation of his voice somehow fulfill a subliminal craving for the man who wants me so much?  

Isn’t it impossible that he could produce that sound without actually being a really horny guy?

So there are these rumors of him being a Lothario.  I don’t know if he is or not, but, if he is, should we be surprised?  Wasn’t it that very quality his voice that drew us to him?  Isn’t it hypocritical to condemn him for the very thing that is his genius -- the ability to desire so strongly?

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Addendum:

Now look here, Lady Gaga is doing a ceremony of commitment with Taylor Kinney

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2791135/lady-gaga-boyfriend-taylor-kinney-hold-commitment-ceremony-prove-dedication.html

Here is a person who was doing public nudity, drugs, declaring herself to be bi, etc.  Now, a bit older and more mature, she's doing an album with Tony Bennet and having a ceremony of commitment with a straight man.

This goes to show how we shouldn't judge people, including Kat and Josh, based on how they were when they were younger.  People mature and change, sometimes for the better -- sometimes not.

memorializing tweets between Josh & Kat & others

I updated this blog several times after starting it.  You can see each new update as headed by some asterisks

***************

Josh has been flirting with young female actresses on twitter for a long time.  I've tended to ignore it, but I'm memorializing this set of interchanges right now, because it looks like it might have developed into something.  First, the expanded conversation view, then just Joshes tweets to her.

Recent appearance together http://t.co/zjKVry9TAh (amazing number of flashes)

**********************

Just for contrast, here's some tweets with another young performer

He actually tweeted this performer more than Kat, but there's not a video of them together, at least I don't know of one, but they tweeted back and forth enough that twitter apparently started behaving oddly with respect to them

****************

Now everyone is getting all excited about Josh appearing with Kat.  He's suddenly the featured item on Yahoo!

But let us not forget that only a few days ago he was photographed at another charity event with former girlfriend, January Jones

http://tg4jg.smugmug.com/The-Appearances/Appearances-2014/Jerry-and-Linda-Bruckheimer/i-L8bXqRR/0/O/2.jpg

This photo is interesting in that he appears with January Jones in a photo with Brad Paisley &  Brad's wife, which makes them look like 2 couples.

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Here's another person who Josh has been tweeting along with some of her most recent tweets.

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Kat is rumored to be engaged to her boyfriend

 http://en.mediamass.net/people/kat-dennings/engaged.html 

who is reported to be Nick Zano

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2618394/Kat-Dennings-boyfriend-Nick-Zano-ruins-romantic-moment-couple-watch-sunset-Hawaii.html

********************

Now, I can't say what is true here.  I am only remembering my impression, from when I was at the Americans for the Arts Awards in 2012, where Josh was honored.  After that event, I came away with the impression that Josh had engaged decoys, possibly even paid them, to distract us from who he was really with.  That's what I believed at the time.  Again, I can't say what is true.

That makes me suspicious that some or all of these women could be decoys again, but who knows?

********************

Here's someone else he tweeted a lot.  She uses her name now, Natalie Mooney, but she used to be Hot Mini Donuts and her twitter handle used to be diaper_wolf.  Josh apparently met her while touring in New Zealand.

I never used to take these extended twitter exchanges very seriously.  I thought these women were all decoys, because of my experience in 2012, but now I wonder whether he wasn't dating all of them.

************

Well here's the link with actual footage of him calling Kat his girlfriend

http://t.co/HUj5b2oRiJ

***************

Addendum 10/20/14

Josh himself mentioned another woman he's been tweeting with

NY Philharmonic 10/1/14

I went to my first concert of my new New York Philharmonic subscription. I had to get this subscription in order to see the concert on 9/17 that Josh Groban was in. 

That was a good concert, btw. I actually tried to record it, but I have a new recorder that I don't know fully how to operate and I somehow pushed the wrong buttons at the wrong time and got nothing. I’m glad someone else recorded it, but I’m still hoping for a DVD.  I haven’t blogged about it for personal reasons.

In any case, buying the subscription was a bit like taking cod liver oil for me. My history is that classical music gives me narcolepsy. Josh's music is different. It has the aspects of classical music that I like, without putting me to sleep.

I haven't quite figured out what puts me to sleep, whether it's certain chord progressions; or musicians who play technically correctly, but without passion; or whether there's something a bit muddy and confused about the conducting that makes the sound blurry and therefore exhausting; or whether there's something about the ventilation that allows too much carbon dioxide to accumulate.  Whatever the cause, I find the experience of struggling to stay awake in the face of narcolepsy unpleasant and sleeping in a concert embarrassing.

Nevertheless, I did notice something on 9/17 that piqued my interest.  The violins seemed to sound different from other orchestra concerts I've been to.  They had a clear, clean sound that I hadn’t heard before.  Now it could be that my hearing is different, but maybe not.  I was happy, tho, because that clean, clear sound was NOT putting me to sleep.

On 9/17 I was in the first tier, but far from the stage in the center back.  The sound there is good, but you can’t see much.  On 10/1, I was in the third tier, but very close to the stage.  This is a partially obscured view seat and you have to stand up and lean over the railing to see stage left, but I could see the violinists very well. 

I immediately noticed that maybe half of them were young Asian women.  I was imagining a bunch of little girls all getting put into Suzuki violin training at age 3.  When I looked around the rest of the orchestra, most of the people were white and often middle aged.  But in the violins there was this large number of young, Asian women. 

I feel that we can really hear the results now of all that early training.  This orchestra totally does not sound the way orchestras used to sound, or at least the way I remember.  It’s a big improvement as far as I’m concerned.  I was a very happy camper in this concert.

Now those of you have read this blog will know that that is not my usual case.  I am often discontent with sound quality issues in concerts.  This was unusual — and welcome.

Also the ventilation was excellent, so there was no issue of carbon dioxide buildup.

Because I was a new subscriber there was a personal letter to me, taped to my seat, from one of the violinists.  It asked me to wave to her, but she never looked up to where I was siting, so I couldn’t.  I did get out my binoculars to find her, so I would know who she was. 

I didn’t rush out to the stage door after the performance to find her, but I may write her a letter.

They also had a representative from the NY Philharmonic come and greet me personally.  I told her I want to hear Lucia Micarelli live before I die and that I’ve had cancer and don’t know how long I have to live.  She wrote down the name and said she would look into it.  She also gave me a nylon shopping bag that collapses into a carrying case and that says NY Philharmonic.

The composer was Nielson.  I hope I'm spelling that right.  This gentleman lived in the late 19th and early 20th century.  The music was what one would call modern classical, with a lot of what one might call experimental sounds.  

They were passing out buttons that said “I <3 Nielson.”  I took one.  I don’t know when I might wear it, but I did love it.  It was fun, never boring.

And the sound — to die for — so wonderful.

Sadly, the place was half empty, especially the third tier.  It was so empty that there was no line at the women’s restroom at intermission on the top floor. That’s really saying something.

That’s really sad.  The New York Philharmonic is now *so* much better than any other orchestra I’ve ever heard — thanks, I think, to all those Asian tiger moms who made their little girls study violin starting at age 3.

Sadly, too, there weren’t enough people in the audience to compel an encore, even tho those who were there were very enthusiastic.

I started out feeling like this was cod liver oil, but they won me over.  Now I’m really looking forward to going again.

So go!  Go to the New York Philharmonic!  It’s not what you expect, or at least it wasn’t what I expected.