"It’s good to go to the funeral, but better to continually visit after the funeral is over"

 ... As heard on (I think) NPR a couple weeks ago.

I don't even remember the context, but I stumbled into a conversation that day and thought that quote was interesting. 

Much like I've finally caught up with the Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society podcast and have learned a lot about various pieces of history. Not just sex (okay, maybe a lot of escapades in the bedroom... including the "Santaphilia: Sexual Attraction to Santa" episode where there's such a thing as a sex toy advent calendar... to which my friend Cat says she wants one. 😮 Not surprised), but also about the definition of "Trash" and how each culture views it differently. The history of blues is not what we think, and there's such a thing as getting free plastic surgery if you're in jail. 

Honest - there's a book about it too. It's called Killer Looks: The Forgotten History of Plastic Surgery in Prisons and it's by Zara Stone. The podcast / interview was interesting because it starts off referencing that "hot mug shot guy" and Ms. Stone's book talks about how "the 1920s up to the mid-1990s, half a million prison inmates across America, Canada, and the U.K willingly went under the knife, their tab picked up by the government", among other facts (like the surgery is to help with reducing recidivism).  

If I recall correctly, this might also have been the episode where they talked about an experiment where a percentage of people had their mug shot and photoshopped with all jail type features taken out of it - tattoos, dirt, anger, etc. What took its place was a few pretty filters, color correction.. things that made the photo to look decent, and attached it to a resume. There are countries that require a head shot with your resume, still, and these people were asked to have multiple interviews for the job and said they would be hired based on their photo. The employer didn't know this was a convict applying - all law breaking was left out of the equation. When the employer was given the real photo and told this person was a criminal, the business said "no thank you". But show them the pretty picture and say the person is a felon? Sure, based on looks, they would be asked for an interview. 

Sounds crazy, I know. But apparently there's such a thing for it. It's not all scripted reality shows we see on TV (A&E  and Fox television, I'm looking at you*). 

I swear.. the things I listen to and try to share with people, but not everyone wants to be a part of the Care Bear lesson. 

Those that want to know more, they take it and run. Although the Betwixt podcast comes with a "fair dues" warning for every episode because it can be quite naughty some days (like the episode 'History of Porn' or 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'" and others can be quite gross (like the episode about 'Food, Sin & Shame'). 

Now that I'm caught up with that, it's a matter of catching up with the rest of the things I'm listening to, to be able to start something else (The trailer for 12 Ghosts sounds amazing). 

So grab a pair of headphones (or a good sound bar to hook up to) and enjoy the immersion...

Cheers;

See Also (aka references)

* A&E has a show called 60 Days In

* Fox has a show we all know and secretly loved in the 90s: COPS