April 29, 1993. John C. Daub. Human Communication 441, James Madison University. Senior-level rhetorical studies course, final paper.

If you know me, you know my primary genre of music is heavy metal. Being a teenager in the 1980s, of course Tipper Gore and the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) was a thing.

That sticker is how you knew it was going to be a good album, thank you very much Ms. Tipper.

It also hit near to my heart. One day I came home from school to find all my music (tapes, etc.) gone. Just… gone!

My mom had thrown them out.

I confronted her. Dad chased me off. “YOU BITCH!”. I got one across the jaw (deservedly so). Yeah… not good. Dad did salvage the tapes. All cool in the end.

Mom had watched the PMRC’s video Rising to the Challenge and also read their book. She had to take action to save her son from the evil. And so… here we are… me still basking in the afterglow of the 2023 Milwaukee Metal Fest…

Sorry mom… it’s not a phase. 😂❤️

Back to my time at JMU…

I don’t recall exactly what HCOM 441 was, but it was basically a high-level rhetorical criticism course by Dr. Anne Gabbard-Alley (who I adore and miss). I don’t know why I chose the PMRC/Tipper to be my topic of this paper (and later presentation where I received high marks from Dr. Carol Jablonski – who I learn as I write this, just passed away). But for whatever reason I had at the time, it was significant enough for me to do it (remember: at the time I was aiming for a career in radio and music industry…). And in writing it, you can see that I actually gave Tipper a fair shot… they did generally succeed at their mission. There was some bullshit too, but… just read the paper.

Why share this? Why not. I mean, it’s the writings of a 20-year-old kid. I don’t think it was that bad, but it’s nothing earth-shattering either. Still, most interesting right now is seeing the pearl clutching. We clutched them then, we clutch them now. And how the spectrum, if you will, has shifted.