rolling #metoo thread for sexual harassment in the music industry so no one misses out when artists we don't give a fuck about like Tim Westwood and Bassnectar get caught

She is very clear about the exploitation of a power imbalance.

Yeah I thought groom was the wrong word (because by definition it refers to minors), but like it’s just a semantic flub of minuscule importance compared to the weight of the allegations here

not wanting to diminish elfman's pattern of sexual misconduct, but i missed the last revive and wanted to say some shit

sexual harassment, sexual assault, patriarchy, these aren't simply issues of individual Bad People doing Bad Things. geever was doing this shit for his whole career. i do think it's important to address that he did all of these things and didn't face accountability until this year.

so yeah, people look at the band and start arguing about how culpable they were. and these posts strike me as being... they get at the core of things

I'm guessing they suspected something uncouth was happening but they didn't know for sure and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt

― frogbs

Guys in rock bands and teenage girls, the rest of the band probably just shook their heads and got on with playing the gigs.

― Monthly Python (Tom D.)

and for me, that's the core of it. you give people you know the benefit of the doubt. you just shrug and get on with things. what geever did was exceptionally bad. what his band did was... normal. that's normal behavior when confronted with this stuff. and it usually works to the benefit of cis white men, but it can happen whenever there's a power imbalance. someone in a position of power, if they do awful things, people will go along to get along, give powerful people the benefit of the doubt to a greater extent than they would give people who aren't powerful.

geever is the kind of person who would tell you that. tell you that to your face. i don't know whether he actually believed it when he said it or not. it doesn't matter. he said this stuff, these true things, and then acted in a way directly contrary to those things. people in position of power who say the right things... i think it's important to listen to what they say, but it's also important to watch what they do.

Not trying to make a parallel comparison exactly, but there have been enough serial killers doing the most vicious terrible shit imaginable while maintaining the facade of a typical quiet conservative seeming suburban dude with a wife and kids that we should recognize people can have a whole other shadow life that no one knows about. If someone is doing something wrong, either on the most hideous level imaginable or the more unfortunately banal and everyday, they will try to do it out of sight from others.

― omar little

because sure, a lot of times people want to hide in plain sight. but it's also true that people see what they want to see, a lot of times. there's this image... you know, it used to be that whenever a serial killer would get caught his neighbors would say "he seemed like such a nice, quiet man." that's not a reflection on him, that's a reflection on _them_, on _their_ cultural values, on what they _wanted_ as a next door neighbor. nowadays you wouldn't ask something like that, i mean, i haven't known my next door neighbors since i was 17. there's no expectation that you know your next door neighbors.

the people who maintain these facades... it kind of reminds me of walter white. i actually haven't seen any episodes of breaking bad. at some point though it becomes obvious that the dude is not right, doesn't it? that he's not right and has never been right. the tough question - and it _is_ a tough question, most of the time - is what to _do_ then. how long to let it go. how much benefit of the doubt to give a person.

and a lot of times we're afraid to speak up.

Um, not to be weird, but I know all of my neighbors— the people across the street, the people next door, the people a few doors down, the people on the other end of the block. Frankly the weird thing to me is not knowing one’s neighbors, but this is better for a different, perhaps new, thread.

sexual harassment, sexual assault, patriarchy, these aren't simply issues of individual Bad People doing Bad Things.

i don't think there was anyone arguing that it was just individuals? that seems pretty obvious

right I mean a person's personal values and the constructs of their social/familial circle can often be at odds with each other. I feel like that's something that gets glossed over particularly with online discussion, like on ILX I think we're mostly in lockstep that conservatives are mostly awful people who are actively hostile towards people who are like some of our beloved posters here and therefore do not deserve the time of day. but in reality, I mean we all know people with bad political views, people who otherwise are solid & reliable folks, and it's not realistic to just cut everyone out of your life, so you give them the benefit of the doubt when you can. or you just tell yourself not to think about it. and I suppose sometimes that dynamic can be taken way too far without necessarily realizing it. especially when it's someone you depend on financially!

i think those are really good responses! i basically agree with all of them :)

I mean, most of my neighbors are either young families or older folks in the bluest congressional district in the US— it’s easy for me to not worry about whether the old couple and their neuroatypical adult daughter who live next door are fascists.

That said… I don’t have any friends who are outside of the left spectrum of political belief.

because sure, a lot of times people want to hide in plain sight. but it's also true that people see what they want to see, a lot of times. there's this image... you know, it used to be that whenever a serial killer would get caught his neighbors would say "he seemed like such a nice, quiet man." that's not a reflection on him, that's a reflection on _them_, on _their_ cultural values, on what they _wanted_ as a next door neighbor. nowadays you wouldn't ask something like that, i mean, i haven't known my next door neighbors since i was 17. there's no expectation that you know your next door neighbors.

the people who maintain these facades... it kind of reminds me of walter white. i actually haven't seen any episodes of breaking bad. at some point though it becomes obvious that the dude is not right, doesn't it? that he's not right and has never been right. the tough question - and it _is_ a tough question, most of the time - is what to _do_ then. how long to let it go. how much benefit of the doubt to give a person.

and a lot of times we're afraid to speak up.

― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, October 20, 2023 7:11 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think a kind of weird unspoken thing about 'the nice quiet man' ... arent they juxtaposing that w the person who is 'obviously' tough to live near & in the context of the united states how racialized that conception often is

I've met one of my next-door neighbors. His name is Kevin and we're about the same height. That's all I know about him. My other next-door neighbor, whose name I do not know, has a beard down to the middle of his chest and drives a pickup with no license plates at all. I suspect if we talked politics, we might disagree. But when we see each other we wave.

doot doo doo doo doot doo doo doo
doo doot doo doo doot doo doo doo

I think when I made that post, I was thinking about the guy they just caught in Long Island as well as BTK and some others. Of course what should be said is that in retrospect there were signs that those guys were definitely "wrong", these stories that trickled out that indicated maybe some type of sadistic behavior. maybe it says something about our culture that these were a white noise that passed unnoticed until it was contextualized, and not a red flag.

SAUL THE TAILOR:
John was a quiet boy, a kind of a loner. But real polite. He always stood still when I hemmed his cuffs. Nice kid.

TED KOPPEL: (off camera)
Do you believe he killed Buckwheat?

SAUL THE TAILOR:
Oh, yes, definitely. That's all he ever talked about. Why, just the other day, he comes in and he says, "Saul, make me a new suit. I'm going to kill Buckwheat and I want to look good on television.

There’s also obviously a lot of “well he was always nice to ME” and it goes without saying this is not a good way to determine if someone is a murderer/sexual assaulter or not.

Into the Woods nailed it years ago

"Nice is different than good"

We’ve had a few neighbors (who lived close to us, in buildings) whom we absolutely thought could have been killers and/or domestic abusers – scary dudes with intense anger issues, who directed that energy at us (for building-specific reasons, in each case) – but unless you actually think someone is unsafe, you can’t really do or report anything based on a “vibe.”

The really unusual folx at the RV park are gone now--the person who shot up the park, the couple who killed and ate random animals in the park and stole all of the food at the last 4th of July celebration, the person who walked around all night mumbling.

sounds like quite the cast of characters, some more unnerving than others, Christine. (shot up the park, wtf)

I think that all neighborhoods have a flattening effect when it comes to community norms, some more than others. and the transgressions follow those norms, in some ways? I think that gets back to the thread topic — when someone upholds community norms, or breaks them in a way that others view as still within bounds, people won’t want to investigate further because acknowledging actual violence would break the illusion of community norms

the people i'm most scared to live next to are cops

cops and the ones who put trump signs on their lawn during election season

most of my life i've been living in bad neighborhoods, the kind with republicans in them, so i guess it makes sense that i don't know my neighbors. i'm living in a good neighborhood now but it's all rentals, people move in and out all the time, people are just in from texas usually, i just don't get the opportunity to know people well. also some people might think i'm the bad neighbor, i had kind of a bad couple months early in the year and i was doing a lot of screaming.

what's this thread about again? oh, danny elfman being a creep. see, i knew something was off about him when i heard he was a republican. you can't trust those fuckers, even if they try to make themselves normal by forming a cult called "the mystic knights of the oingo boingo".

The father/husband in the family next door works for the sheriff (in some administrative capacity). He’s outwardly mild, but we’ve had a few signals of what his politics are like.

A house around the corner had a Trump yard sign in 2020 (at one point, someone threw it in a puddle a few streets over, but it was retrieved and displayed again). I never actually saw the guy who lives there until recently – he’s never outside when I walk by, and I avoid the house anyway. Turns out he’s younger than I pictured… he actually kind of looked like one of those two dudes I mentioned earlier, from the last place we lived.

xpost
While we now know disgusting and horrible things about elfman, it seems pretty clear he isn’t a republican, or at least not in the last ~20 years. Just based on stuff in interviews and articles etc.

What he is is bad enough…

eat shit, Neil Portnow

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/arts/music/neil-portow-grammys-rape-lawsuit.html

oh wow

paywall

In a statement, a representative of Mr. Portnow called the allegations false, and said they were “the product of the plaintiff’s imagination and undoubtedly motivated by Mr. Portnow’s refusal to comply with the plaintiff’s outrageous demands for money and assistance in obtaining a residence visa for her.”

Ok this is wild creepy

The complaint includes an image of an email from a lawyer for Mr. Portnow, sent in November 2018, relaying what it said was a personal message from Mr. Portnow to the woman.

“Please know that I have always respected you in every way at all times, both professionally and personally,” the message reads. “I remember your indicating your interest and belief in the teachings of Buddha and I found this saying which resonates with you now: ‘Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.’”

LA Reid too now, all in one day wow

Interview from a couple of months back but of relevance: Alaura O'Dell aka Paula P-Orridge about Genesis.

https://outsideleft.com/main.php?updateID=2806

thanks for that. i hope we see her memoir published.

and allegedly blew up Kid Cudi’s car pic.twitter.com/V6phMCyRdF

— Joe Coscarelli (@joecoscarelli) November 16, 2023

wrong link

BREAKING: Diddy is being sued by the singer Cassie, his longtime partner and former Bad Boy artist, for years of alleged horrific physical and sexual abuse

by @sisario https://t.co/rpMxv5Iw91

some truly heinous stuff in this lawsuit pic.twitter.com/ivWWTVWaOc

— Joe Coscarelli (@joecoscarelli) November 16, 2023

holy shit

jfc

Fuck

…

yikes

damn, even worse than i thought

Blew up Kid Cudi’s car

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRhfBdhC-2o

that poor woman

this is uhh... hoo boy

horseshoe otm

jesus

from what I remember, when these lawsuits loop in a third party, the third party is usually like "no comment" but I guess it's so bad that Kid Cudi (through his spokesperson but still) confirmed the car blowing up

Also Dawn Richards and others supporting Cassie

Blowing up the car is some throwback mafia stuff. Why did he do that?

(And obviously it’s the least egregious thing here)

This is absolutely awful. No one should have to go through shit like this.

if only there had been some clue that he was a gigantic asshole

his attack on Steve Stoute, which happened in the Interscope offices during business hours was really brazen

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-21-fi-39384-story.html

I don't think the "lol are you surprised" tone is needed in a story about this level of domestic abuse.