Late last August my blog essentially stopped receiving spam comments after averaging several hundred a week for years. Weeks would go by where my blog received zero spam comments. Within a few months, though, I started getting a few spam comments a week. Maybe a handful. No biggie.
Suddenly, within the past week or so, my blog is getting dozens of spam comments a day. This morning, for example, after clearing out my spam folder last night before going to sleep, I had 65 new spam message.
Apparently somewhere in the internets the word has gotten out that I’m in the dermocosmetics business.
Here is a sampling of the spam messages I found this morning.
Hello, the payment methods on your website are very diverse and secure. This allows me to shop with confidence. ******
Hello, the discounts and campaigns on your website are very advantageous for dermocosmetics and supplements. This allows me to shop at very affordable prices. ******
Hello, the product images on your website are very high quality and reflect the real appearance of the products. This allows me to better understand the products. ******
Hello, the shipping time for your dermocosmetics products is very fast. I received my order quickly. ******
my friend tell me your website was so impressive and fitures in your blog so usefull and great please tellme how to make this beautiful blog.
Hmm. Maybe I should go into the dermocosmetics business. Apparently I already have a secure payment system, great discounts, fast shipping, and my “fitures” are impressive. Keep your eye out for Fandango’s Dermocosmetics coming to your Reader soon.
Is celebrating Mother’s Day a tradition for your family or not?
Yes, we always celebrate Mother’s Day in our family by doing something special for and with all of the mothers in our immediate family. That includes my wife, and our daughter-in-law, her mother, and our daughter (who is not a mother). And, of course, the male spouses in the family.
Today we’re celebrating by having a Mother’s Day picnic lunch at a local park with everyone, including, of course, our grandkids. Well, that was the plan, anyway. I am not going because I’m still sick with congestion, a hacking cough, and a low-grade fever. My wife is also not feeling very well and is afraid she is coming down with something. So she, too, is not going. The Mother’s Day picnic is still on, but without my wife and me.
So not much of a Mother’s Day celebration today. But we did get a Mother’s Day gift for our daughter-in-law, and I’m sure that our kids got something for Mrs. Fandango.
The presentation of the Mother’s Day gifts will have to be postponed until everyone is feeling better. Hopefully soon!
For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has asked us to find a song that reached number 2 on the charts, but never got to number 1. In case any of you are wondering about the title of this post, “close but no cigar” is an expression used to indicate that someone or something has fallen just short of a successful outcome, and in this case, that successful outcome is reaching number 1.
I was actually surprised to learn while doing my research for today’s prompt, that the extremely popular song from the Village People, “Y.M.C.A.,” stalled at number 2 in the U.S., where it spent three weeks, first behind “Le Freak” by Chic and then for two weeks behind another disco burner, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart. Yet, in most other countries, it went to number 1. It was especially popular in the UK, where it stayed at the top for three weeks, and in Australia, where it was number 1 for five. Australia became a stronghold for the group.
“Y.M.C.A.” was written by Jacques Morali (also the record’s producer) and singer Victor Willis. It was released in October 1978 by Casablanca Records as the only single from the Village People’s third studio album, Cruisin’.
In case you didn’t know this, Y.M.C.A. stands for “Young Men’s Christian Association,” commonly associated with the gyms that often provide temporary housing to men. The Village People’s song portrays the YMCA as a place where one can socialize with other people. However, it is implied that the YMCA is a safe haven for young gay men who are not comfortable coming out of the closet yet. Although the lyrics do not explicitly mention anything related to homosexuality, the song has become a gay anthem.
In 1977, producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo put together a group that aimed to appeal to gay audiences while satirizing the stereotypes associated with that same audience. Songwriters Phil Hurtt and Peter Whitehead were commissioned to create songs with gay themes. The roles and costumes for the group were chosen carefully, including a cowboy, a biker, a soldier, a policeman, and a construction worker with a hard hat.
The song’s co-writer, Victor Willis, insists this is not a “gay song,” with the line “you can hang out with all the boys” inspired by his youth, when he would play basketball with his friends at the YMCA. “I wanted to write a song that could fit anyone’s lifestyle, and I’m happy the gay community adopted it as their anthem, I have no qualms with that.”
The YMCA that inspired the song was the McBurney YMCA on West 23rd Street in New York City between 7th and 8th avenues (in 2002, it moved to 14th Street). That was the YMCA Jacques Morali saw, which gave him the idea. In the video, the group performs with the building as a backdrop.
Interesting factoid: The dance, where people spell out YMCA with their hands, originated during the group’s performance of the song on the January 6, 1979 episode of American Bandstand. Host Dick Clark then said to Willis that he would like to show him something, playing the song again with the audience doing YMCA hand gestures. Willis immediately picked up on the dance and mimicked the hand movements back at the audience as other Village People members stared at him with puzzled looks. Clark then turned to Willis and said, “Victor, think you can work this dance into your routine?” Willis responded, “I think we’re gonna have to.”
In March 2020, the U.S. Library of Congress added the song “YMCA” to its National Recording Registry, which preserves for posterity audio that is “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” When it was entered, Victor Willis explained how he came up with the lyric. The first verse (“Young man, there’s no need to feel down…”) begins a story about a guy who’s down on his luck and looking for a place to stay. The narrator is trying to cheer this guy up, telling him, “I was once in your shoes,” and letting him know it’s fun to stay at the YMCA.
Here are the lyrics to “Y.M.C.A.”
Young man, there's no need to feel down I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town There's no need to be unhappy
Young man, there's a place you can go I said, young man, when you're short on your dough You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find Many ways to have a good time
It's fun to stay at the YMCA It's fun to stay at the YMCA
They have everything for you men to enjoy You can hang out with all the boys
It's fun to stay at the YMCA It's fun to stay at the YMCA
You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal You can do what about you feel
Young man, are you listening to me? I said, young man, what do you want to be? I said, young man, you can make real your dreams But you got to know this one thing
No man does it all by himself I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf And just go there, to the YMCA I'm sure they can help you today
It's fun to stay at the YMCA It's fun to stay at the YMCA
They have everything for you men to enjoy You can hang out with all the boys
It's fun to stay at the YMCA It's fun to stay at the YMCA
You can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal You can do what about you feel
Young man, I was once in your shoes I said, I was down and out with the blues I felt no man cared if I were alive I felt the whole world was so tight
That's when someone came up to me And said, young man, take a walk up the street There's a place there called the YMCA They can start you back on your way
It's fun to stay at the YMCA It's fun to stay at the YMCA
They have everything for you men to enjoy You can hang out with all the boys
YMCA you'll find it at the YMCA
Young man, young man, there's no need to feel down Young man, young man, get yourself off the ground
YMCA, just to the the YMCA
Young man, young man, are you distant to me Young man, young man, what did you wanna be
YMCA, just go to the YMCA
No man, young man
And in case you want to impress your friends by knowing how to do the YMCA dance, this is for you.
Welcome to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (U.S.).
Today’s word is “crystal.”
Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.
Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, ÿplease manually add your link in the comments.
And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. Show them some love.
Earlier this week, Suze at Obsolete Childhood, posed this question in her “Answer Me This” prompt.
What values are fundamental to you and why?
When I responded to Suze’s prompt, I did so from the perspective of my rights and freedoms as an American — rights and freedoms that I have always taken for granted — that enable me to be me, to be who I am.
And that is the problem. Over the past two decades, and especially since 2016 when Trump won the presidency, these rights and freedoms that I have taken for granted have eroded significantly.
Over the past decade and a half, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in the Citizens United decision, that corporations and other outside groups have a First Amendment right to free speech, which includes independent political spending. The court naively assumed that independent spending would not be corrupt and that it would be transparent. But the decision’s impact was to dramatically expand the already significant political influence of wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups. It also facilitated the use of “dark money” to finance political campaigns where groups can spend unlimited funds on elections without revealing the source of the funding.
The high court also eviscerated the Voting Rights Act because Chief Justice John Roberts wrote an opinion that effectively declared the end of racism in the United States. He argued that the “extraordinary measures” employed by a key provision of the Voting Rights Act could no longer be justified because our country had changed significantly since the Act became law in 1965. Seriously?
More recently, in 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, thus paving the way for states to essentially ban women who live in those states from having abortions and making it a criminal offense. Since then, fully half of the states in this country have banned abortions or tightened restrictions. Some of these states are passing laws that require women who are pregnant to register with the state! Overturning Roe v. Wade essentially took away women’s rights to choose to have abortions and their freedom to manage their own reproductive healthcare.
And in certain states, teachers are being forbidden to teach topics that the ”states” have deemed offensive, like critical race theory, tying slavery as a factor leading to the Civil War, banning books that discuss LGBTQ matters, and other “woke” (i.e., liberal) topics. Trump has promised that if he is reelected, he intends to imprison his political enemies.
I am a liberal atheist who is free to express his views on sex, religion, and politics without fear of reprisals or arrest and imprisonment. But in what may become the “new Trumpian America,” I fear that the rights and freedoms of many more Americans may be at risk.
With the way things are going in this country, how certain are you, when it comes to your freedom of expression as a blogger, it won’t look something like this?
This, That, and the Other 