Tony, Tony, Tony -

Don't you see that you're just blinded by your penis?

[brief pause to let several untoward mental images flash through our minds...]

- Parker

My favorite moment in Fox TV's "American Idol" came early in the audition process. A brunette with incredible flashing eyes sang, dreadfully, and one of the talent scouts said something like, "I don't think you even hit one right note."

Her response (and here I use single quote marks to indicate the level of scorn heaped on the individual words): "I wasn't ''trying'' to '''hit''' the ''''''right'''''' '''notes.'''"

It is unfair that boys are the only ones who get to have talentless punk bands.

The silly-girl feminists have plagued us with this vagino-fascist crap for going on three decades now. Thanks to your post, Dr. Woodlief, I believe that I am now beginning to understand the appeal of homosexuality.

They shouldn't call them music camps anymore, they should just call them fame camps. No one wants to be a good musician nowadays, they just want to be a celebrity. more...

Tony,

I would not have been able to listen to even 30 seconds of that twaddle on NPR, but I enjoyed reading your "take" on it. Of all the fatuous alternative worlds out there for our edification, the academic feminist model must rank at the top of the list.

The consciousness-raising sessions, the bare-breasted, tree-hugging romps in the woods, the creation of modern-day mythological spirit worlds with hags and crones and assorted other new age wise womyn, the theory of intercourse as rape, the theory of masculine pronouns as figurative rape, the pseudointellectual historical revisionism that judges Western history from the perspective of 60s leftism, etc., etc. It would all be laughable were it not so pathetic.

And just to show finally how hopelessly unredeemable I am, I will quote Joseph Conrad:

"It's queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and there never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset. Some confounded fact we men have been living contentedly with ever since the day of creation would start up and knock the whole thing over."

Joe, you are the man!

looks like this kind of camp for "grrrrrrls" is not limited to Seattle. My town of ANn Arbor has also been infected by this virus- usually this is a situation where talentless older women, who for obvious reasons, havent made it as musicians, try to organise a "conciousness-raising" type of camp, where impressionable, younger girls are told that they need to develop asocial attitudes, act nasty, turn to lesbianism, to shock and confront their way to fame and fortune.
it would be funny if these camps were reports from The Onion, but it is extremely sad because these camps are sprouting all over the place- where talentless losers, who happen to be women, take their resentments out by indoctrinating impressionable girls into their cult of perpetual victimhood. Since they coundt sing or play a lick, so they are encouraged to strike out against the omnipresent male hegemony. These camps tent to attract girls who are socially inept, non-athletic, or have other problems, and they come back filled with rage against the whole world. And when their lack of talent, or their lack of desire to learn music leads to failure, they sit around, angry, bitching about the men in the world have conspired to put them down!!!
I manage a music store here, and I have to deal with these talentless losers with huge egos and bad attitudes every single day!!!!!

Tony,

Your reference, near the end, to tribal identity is to the point. I wonder how much this camp is about rejecting the need to conform to the music industry (By the way, are males free of the need to conform?) and how much is about rejecting music itself because it's structure and methods, its canon, and our established musical tastes, are all largely products of past patriarchy.

Even the instruments we use are suspect. For instance, some may be more easily mastered by a person with large hands. Since more men than women have large hands, a feminist might argue (and probably has argued) that women have been marginalized. (That there are instruments that are more suited to women than men would not serve as compensation. The disgruntled feminist would undoubtedly "discover" that those instruments and the repretoire for them have been given second-class status in the patriarchal world.)

One does not need to be a feminist to see that the development of our civilization (and probably all other civilizations as well) has male domination as one of its dominant features. However, another feature of our civilization has been the slow dissolution of those social structures that had put both men and women in pre-ordained classes and held them there by the power of both secular and religious law. The process is not finished, obviously. However, the legacy we have inherited has so much that is worth cherishing and preserving, so much that is there for us to simply enjoy. To mark everything with the taint of patriarchy and actually believe that it can be purged by retreating into girls-only camps with girls-only rules seems to me both misguided and ridiculous.

The underlying problem is the mush-minded notion that systems in which it's possible to be wrong are . . . um, wrong. All rules and standards crush the creativity, spirit and self-esteem of the inner and/or outer child. I don't think this is a feminist idea per se. You'd think singing in tune with others would be a collectivist ideal.

Oh I know what you mean, Joanne. If they think 4 being the only answer to 2 + 2 is oppressive, how can we expect them to see musical rules and standards any different.

The truth is the only creative freedom we have as artists comes from knowing the rules and standards of our chosen medium, and that takes a lot of hardwork and dedication. There are no shortcuts and natural talent only speeds the process up so much.

"Camps" like these pander to the notion that todays youth are incapable of making that kind of commitment, of working hard for a distant goal. It's insulting and, too often, self-fullfilling.

These poor girls would have been better served by a showing of Walt Disney's 1955 movie, Lady and the Tramp. In which, most of the songs were co-written by Peggy Lee, with several sung by her.

You want female creativity? Try, "He's a Tramp (But I Love Him)". In which her famous ability to "bend a note" makes the song.

You want female victimhood? Lee, who died earlier this year, had her mother die when she was 4. Her father, who as a railroad man in Jamestown, ND traveled frequently, re-married a woman who abused young Peggy. To the extent that she had to live with a facial scar from being hit with the buckle end of a belt by wicked step-mom.

When asked about that childhood years later, she replied: "It was good for me. It toughened me."

Here's a list of songs written by Lee that have been performed by other singers (as well as herself) at:

http://www.peggylee.com/solos/others.html

I heard that piece while I was cooking dinner (as the man in the family, proving my penis is not blinding my thoughts). The star musician who visited the camp is Carrie Brownstein of "Sleater-Kinney" (whose album, "The Hot Rock", I own, published by "Kill Rock Stars"). She is a dyke, just to provide full disclosure. They are a garage-rock band that takes advantage of their female differences (their voices) to sound distinctive.

When I listened to that piece, I imagined my daughter going to such a camp because she was truly interested in making music. It makes me think of "La Bamba" movie we watched over the weekend, where Ritchie Valens pleads that he only cares about "making my music".

I think you are blowing all out of proportion. If I send my son to basketball camp, is it because he thinks (and I support) that he will make the NBA? No, it is because he loves the sport enough to dedicate a week of his life to improving his skill. Regardless of whether Michael Jordan comes to camp to talk to them, I still expect him lucky to play first string when he gets to college.

I am much more deeply concerned about true winers like Michael Jackson, the most successful King of Pop, who feels that the music industry is giving blacks a raw deal (now, 30 years later).

He may be right (and so may be female musicians), but how do you act on it? How do you work within the system to your benefit? That isn't something these girls are ready to even consider, and I think you are reading too much into what this camp was about!

David there is big difference between sending your son o a basketball camp and kind of "grrrrrrllll" rock-n-roll camp featured in the NPR story. In basketball, you kid will be taught that one needs to work hard at one's skills if one is to make it in the NBA or in other pursuits in life. In the Grrrrrls rock-nroll camp, learning t he craft of music is not emphasised, leftist, postmodernist, notions of identy-politics in its worst form are trotted out and girls are taught that talent, hard work, dedication are nothing but male prescribed concepts, designed solely to opress women, and keep them out of the music business. So girls are taught that they dont need to learn to be creative and creat great music, but that they should attempt to make it by exhibiting and anti-social, anti-establishment, anti-male attitude, and also that concepts like standards dont exist, because "standards" are nothing but a male-designed method of oppression!!! So, instead of learning the techniques and craft of music making, girls in these camps are encouraged to play the role of perpetual victim, taught that they aren't good enough, that the only way to succeed is to have an"attitude"!!! Thsi is another example of leftist, feminist ideology of victimhood run amuck.

And at basketball camp boys are taught that they are Jocks who can rule their world because they are cooler and bigger and predestined to success? There are by-products, to be sure, but these kind of events for kids are to focus them on what they are passionate about.

Really, I think you guys are just reading too much into it. Does every girls-only or women-only event need to be feminist, agenda-toting event?

Well, yes, these events do have have that agenda, or else well-off, well intentioned liberal types won't send their kids. Social agendas are vital for college applications. Conservative parents know better than to enroll their daughters in indocrination camps and poor people don't have the money or the inclination. Girls only events, unless they're "Princess Parties" on the Upper West Side have to have veneer of sisterhood, low-fat and Kumbayah.

Well, yes, these events do have have that agenda, or else well-off, well intentioned liberal types won't send their kids. Social agendas are vital for college applications. Conservative parents know better than to enroll their daughters in indocrination camps and poor people don't have the money or the inclination. Girls only events, unless they're "Princess Parties" on the Upper West Side have to have veneer of sisterhood, low-fat and Kumbayah.