Jazz Bagpiper Rufus Harley: A man who really did go his own way

That was awesome. Happy New Year, everyone!

Great idea! You’ve shown men who have actually went their own way with grace and fabulousness. Remember the dancing picnic-ers?

yessssssssssssssssssssssss… we need more bagpipists.

Whoa!

Whatever I was expecting, it was not that. That was way more amazing.

Huh. At first it sounded like his bagpipes were in a different key from his accompanists’, but it started to grow on me. Either way, mad props for him.

The Q&A section reminded me of that show on Nickelodeon, “Figure It Out,” except without slime or charades clues.

Thanks, Skye, I hope so, but I’m tired of these interviews happening and getting so much media attention.

That also brings up a question I’ve always thought about asking here because I’m curious: are others on this board aware of a moment in their lives at which time they made a conscious decision to identify as a feminist?

For myself I’m not sure exactly when I learned the word “feminist,” but it was sometime when I was extremely young, and I’ve absolutely identified as a feminist ever since I knew the word. It just seemed like the obvious thing to be. So I always find it really interesting when others talk about what brought them to feminism, etc., because I’ve called myself a feminist since I was a very little girl.

Also, when my peers throughout school, college, would say they weren’t feminists, I would think to myself “well, why the hell not?” I wish I had asked that question to them out loud more often.

I remember calling my father a “male chauvinist pig” when I was 4. I can’t remember where I first heard the term, but it was an accurate description.

Also, I never imagined jazz bagpipes, but that was awesome! It’s kind of inspired me to maybe pursue my lifelong dream of starting a classical kazoo ensemble…

hahahahahaha! When I told my mother that I’m a feminist, she smacked me and ran and hid in the bathroom and cried for a 1/2 hour. This was awkward, as it was my house. I was in my early 30’s. If Judgey Bitch didn’t swear so much, I’m sure that my mom would think she was dandy (if she knew about her. I’m not going to tell her about AVFM, because she’d donate).

And, I made the grave error of introducing Mr.Grump to Rufus Harley, and now I have to procure the albums. I don’t think I’ll tell my mr. about your ambition, ncc1707d, as it might give him ideas…

Ever since the current feminist movement began in the late 60s, there has been a more or less organized attempt to convince people that feminists are bad people with bad ideas: feminazis is the usual formulation. This is being done for a quite obvious reason: feminism upsets a lot of apple-carts by questioning a good deal of conventional wisdom and challenging a lot of established entitlements. Almost as soon as feminism appeared as a vibrant movement, anti-feminists appeared to claim that feminists were all a bunch of angry, ugly man-hating lesbians who were bitter because they couldn’t get a man. (Logic and consistency have never played much of a role in anti-feminism.) Anti-feminists range from the crude blather of Rush Limbaugh to the sophisticated sly deceptions of Christina Hoff Sommers, but they all have one purpose, which is to demonize feminism and make as many women as possible reluctant to identify themselves as feminists. Nowadays they all bring up Valerie Solanas’s 50-year-old article on the Society for Cutting Up Men as evidence, and Sommers loves to quote the since-retracted view of a feminist music critic that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is about a rape. Obviously in any movement you can find somebody with extreme views, and academics of all philosophical stripes frequently say outrageous things because that’s what gets attention. But specifically anti-male animus has actually been surprisingly weak in mainstream feminism, considering the lies and abuse that anti-feminists have employed. But you can always find some anti-male animus SOMEWHERE and claim it’s the mainstream. And if you can’t find it, you can make it up.
In any case, “I’m not a feminist but … ” has been around from the start. As a man, it is really not my place to try to convince women that they should openly and proudly identify themselves as feminists, but I believe I am permitted to regard anti-feminism as a deceitful pursuit of self-interest and to silently wish very hard that more and more women will come to the same conclusion.

And, I made the grave error of introducing Mr.Grump to Rufus Harley, and now I have to procure the albums.

Uh-oh. I’m now thinking it might not be safe to play that clip where Mr K might hear it, even though I’m the one in this family who likes the pipes.

Still, if it meant I could persuade him to wear a kilt …

Jazz… bagpipes? How odd.

I was raised with the assumption that I could do any damn thing I put my mind to, and fuck the haters. In other words, a feminist. In fact, my father’s attitude that racism and misogyny were… maybe not gone, but not much of a factor in American life caused some problems between us. Attempts to point out the giant problems in his bootstrap narratives just caused fights.

Damn, how I miss him. My first thought on seeing the post title was that dad would get a kick out of it. Sometimes I can’t look at bonsai or orchids without crying. Millions of horrible people in this world, and a man who had an enormous impact on so many lives died slowly.