There is a fascinating fracas in the heartland. It’s stirring the nostalgic juices of all of us ink-stained geezers, who periodically look up from our laptops and long for that rancid smell of crusty old newsrooms, complete with pica poles, glue pots and hungover editors in green shaded visors, an unfiltered cigarette hanging from their lips. From a production standpoint, today’s journalism is barely recognizable to anyone who got their first byline in the ‘60s or ‘70s. The printed page is on a death watch. Digital rules. Video trumps words. Content is designed for a smart phone screen. Nobody yells “Stop the presses!” anymore.
But just when you’ve accepted the fact that this vintage newspaper culture is confined to “The Front Page”, now in a limited Broadway engagement starring Nathan Lane, along comes a throwback to the days of old. It brought back so many memories, only 37 years of twelve-stepping kept me from reaching for a back-pocket flask to toast the moment.
This wonderful oldie-but-goodie appeared in a recent Minneapolis Star-Tribune story about the censorship of a poem titled “A Prayer for P–––––s.” That is exactly the way the newspaper identified the title. Millennials reading that story may have thought it was a word game. The censored poem’s title was a Prayer for a seven letter word starting with “p” and ending with “s”. Hmm. Prayer for Papists? Prayer for Pasties? How about, with apologies to those with allergies, Prayer for Peanuts? No? Then, maybe Prayer for Piggies, Pouters, Psychos or Pushers? Or even Prayer for Pundits, Punters, Pygmies or Phonics?
Of course, those of us old enough to remember the golden days of print journalism knew in a nostalgic instant that the alliterated prayer could only be for. . . drumroll please. . .ready? PUSSIES! The censored poem was “A Prayer for Pussies.” The blanks were a throwback to an era when newspapers strove to protect pure and innocent eyes. Newsrooms were odd places back then. Profanities, dirty words and foul language were part of the constant banter, but there was a sacredness about the printed word and editors made sure that the bad ones never ended up in their paper. Granted, it was news when a senator told a colleague to perform an anatomically challenging act on himself. In print, it came out as “Go f––k yourself.”
Enough of memory lane, let’s get back to pussies. A well-known Minnesota writer and artist, Junauda Petrus, was commissioned by the City of Minneapolis to write a poem to be encircled around one of 12 globe-shaped metal lanterns as part of the redesign of a downtown mall. Seizing on the uniqueness of this political moment, Petrus converted the presidential campaign’s infamous Donald Trump-Billy Bush exchange into an artfully crafted ode to the power of womanhood. She called it “A Prayer for Pussies,” figuring that a country that just elected a president who boasted about grabbing them couldn’t possibly object to praying for them.
Alas, she was wrong. Minneapolis officials decided that, as progressive as their city might be, hanging a “Prayer for Pussies” lantern in front of Macy’s Department Store might be pushing the envelope just a tad. Petrus’ poem was rejected and the resulting censorship flap was the entire basis for the Star-Tribune story. Unfortunately for readers, the piece looked like a Wheel of Fortune game board, waiting for Vanna White to start turning letters. The reporter did a solid job of telling both sides, but the nostalgic ‘60s edits were tantamount to an endorsement of the city’s censorship decision. Take a look, for example, at this otherwise pithy quote from the poet, comparing her art to Trump’s, eh, “locker room” behavior: “If he can feel bold to not only say the word ‘p––––,’ but make it a philosophy to grab for women, I can fricking write a poem that is adding sacredness and having love around the idea of praying for p–––––s.”
It’s 2017, people. The word pussy isn’t going to hurt anyone. A news story based entirely on a controversy over the use of a word needs to spell it out. Without blanks. Still, the flap was amusing and it took me back to my very early years as a reporter on a small town newspaper. During a heated council meeting, a colorful local mayor called the police chief a “goddamn suck hole.” The chief sued the mayor for slander. After lengthy litigation, a judge dismissed the suit on the basis that the term “goddamn suck hole” was so lacking in substantive meaning that it could not rise to the level of slander because nobody knew what it was.
Through it all, the newspaper referred to the alleged slanderous term as “g–––––n s––– h–––.” Many readers actually cut the articles out of the paper, filled in the blanks and mailed them in. Most of them got it wrong. The top vote getter was “goddamn shit head,” which, had it been uttered by the mayor, would have presented the court a more difficult set of facts. Other readers, baffled by all the blanks, called the newspaper and demanded to know the censored term. As a result, a young newsroom receptionist sat for weeks at her desk, telephone in hand, repeating over and over, “goddamn suck hole.” It was a strange ethical system: you could say it, but you couldn’t print it, even though a judge found that it had no meaning.
Of course, we now have an even stranger ethical system. For the next four years, the band will be playing Hail to the Chief for a man who grabs women by their pussies, while a poet who wants to pray for them is forever banned. As we used to say back in the day, that is really f––––d up.