"It has been exciting to watch as more men embrace vulnerability.... But my hope has begun to diminish as I’ve watched male vulnerability curdle into something toxic."

"Let’s call it petulant vulnerability. Think of the boyfriend professing loneliness to ensure his partner never sees their friends. Or the hundreds of texts and anecdotes of so-called softbois collected on the @beam_me_up_softboi Instagram account — men who express their feelings the way avalanches share snow, often as a form of manipulation or passive aggression.... The aftermath of last year’s Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was a festival of petulant vulnerability. While the attack itself was violent and wrathful, many in the mostly male mob, who screamed obscenities or threw heavy objects at police officers that day, later wept as they expressed shame, offered excuses or complained about jobs and friends they lost.... If true vulnerability means accepting change, personal fallibility and the human condition of reliance on others, petulant vulnerability feigns emotional fragility as a means of retaining power.... What if, on Jan. 5, 2021, a man upset by Donald Trump’s electoral defeat had confessed to friends and loved ones that he was afraid and that he felt he was losing control in a world he believed no longer valued him? What if he had sat with those feelings, cried if he wanted to and discussed how to chart his path in a changing landscape? That would have been vulnerable."

From "This Isn’t Your Old Toxic Masculinity. It Has Taken an Insidious New Form" by Alex McElroy (NYT). We're told "Mx. McElroy is the author of the novel 'The Atmospherians,' about two friends who start a cult to reform problematic men." 

"Try to imagine Muhammad Ali without Little Richard’s winking persona, his swing and swagger ('I am the King!')."

"Try to imagine James Brown, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, Elton John, and Prince without his electrical charge. Little Richard was an original, and he did not hesitate to remind his students of their debt. He once looked into a television camera and, with affection, told Prince, 'I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!'... Richard Penniman was born in 1932 into a large, poor Christian family, in Macon, Georgia. His father was a brick mason and a bootlegger. One of Richard’s legs was shorter than the other, making him a source of mockery among other children. 'They thought I was trying to twist and walk feminine... The kids would call me faggot, sissy, freak.'... Even as a child singer, Richard was known for his high range and incredible volume. But, in his father’s eyes, he was unbearably effeminate and not to be tolerated. When Richard was a teen-ager, he was thrown out of the house and went to live with Ann and Johnny Johnson, a white couple who ran a local venue, the Tick Tock Club.... Throughout his teens, he was in and out of outfits like Buster Brown’s Orchestra (where he got the name Little Richard) and the Tidy Jolly Steppers. He sang, sometimes wearing a red evening gown, under the name Princess Lavonne, in Sugarfoot Sam’s Minstrel Show."

From "Little Richard, the Great Innovator of Rock and Roll" by David Remnick (The New Yorker).

I wanted to find a photograph of Little Richard in the Princess Lavonne persona. I did find this description at Talkhouse, "Pour on the Steam: Little Richard at Age 19/Adam Weiner (Low Cut Connie) tells a tale of magical personhood in a Macon, Georgia bus station":

It was a medicine show spiritualist pseudo-psychic passing through town named Doctor Nobilio who was the first to tell Richard he would be massively famous—he just needed to get the hell out of Macon. He quit high school and joined up with a series of amazingly-titled rinky-dink traveling shows, initially billed as Little Richard, and then as the great Princess Lavonne. He performed with Dr. Hudson’s Medicine Show, Sugarfoot Sam from Alabam, the Tidy Jolly Steppers, and the Broadway Follies. Princess Lavonne was an intense, hilarious Queen in Pancake 31 makeup. He worked on his schtick, but ultimately was an awkward drag performer. He had a natural gift to electrify and seduce, but with his mismatched legs, he couldn’t figure out how to walk or dance in heels so he would just stand still and wait for someone to open and close the curtain...

I'd also love to hear the story from the perspective of Ann and Johnny Johnson. Who were these white people who took in Little Richard when his father was so cruel to him? Or was his father cruel to him?

Bud Penniman. What voice did that man have?