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Open thread 3/2/21 — 62 Comments

  1. I don’t really like the Eagles, but I really like Joe Walsh.

    Yeah, doesn’t make sense to me either.

  2. I think I’ve said it here before, but I really like the old Eagles (and the rest is good too) and the above is a classic. Those guys seem to sing exceedingly well on stage. I think I read somewhere that there is a sign or monument to That corner in Winslow, Arizona.

    I watched the Big Lebowski again out of COVID boredom recently. The Dude may abide, but he hates The Eagles. I believe the character was based on a young film producer that was instrumental in assisting the Coen’s early in their career.

  3. TommyJay,

    A friend was recently dismayed to learn that, like the Eagles, Creedence Clearwater Revival were not good old boys raised on a Louisiana bayou, but, rather, suburban kids from Southern California.

    Wait ’til he learns about Hibbing, Minnesota’s native son, Robert Zimmerman.

  4. Reading a blog like Neo’s reminds us of things we have forgotten about ourselves, and about others, and about our relationship to our own culture, cohort, and milieu.

    As is the case with many others, I find much of the music discussed here more or less interesting, often times a tolerable listen, and sometimes even highly enjoyable or somewhat sentimental.

    But for me, that deep emotional resonance others have with the lyrics; or the restoration of their feelings of identification with a “special historically situated we” which they seem to experience, is completely absent.

    This could be related both to one’s ability to appreciate poetry, and also to one’s susceptibility to experiencing warm feelings as a result of of being part of a generation, or a movement, or a significant fashion.

    How much of music appreciation relates to an identification with passing cultural sensibilities and contexts then, as opposed to more universal appeals, I personally cannot say.

    But what I have tried to do recently is to step back from my naturally dismissive attitudes, in order to try and puzzle out what is actually taking place in the brains of others when they do express a liking or appreciation for this sound or that lyric.

    I might never understand it or feel any real appreciation for the product or its creator, but I might gain some understanding of the person who does.

  5. Not quite, John Fogerty and the rest of CCR were from El Cerrito, a Northern California suburb in the East Bay just north of Berkeley. Probably no less dismaying to your friend, Rufus, if not more so but perhaps he can find some measure of solace in that Fogerty had somewhat of a blue collar background.

    I’m not really a big fan of either the Eagles or CCR though I like some of their records. My recommendation for the group’s next musical project: Lynyrd Skynyrd.

  6. DNW

    For whatever reason, I have very little nostalgia about old music. Most of it that I do remember with any nostalgia at all is from the 50s and my earliest youth, and it’s not necessarily the music I’m fond of now. Much that I like now, like the Bee Gees, I wasn’t more than vaguely familiar with back then. But I agree that this may be unusual.

    First time around, I barely noticed the Eagles, for example. By the 70s I was no longer in college. Same for Queen and so many others. Their heyday was after the time when I would be expected to get the most emotionally attached.

  7. Questions,

    Assume that you grew up with, and like or liked rock music; and that the idea of revisiting those songs appeals to you.

    How often during the calendar year, or decade for that matter, would you, or do you, want to hear the song(s) ?

    At the point at which you are actively revisiting the music, how many times would you listen to the same tune or set of tunes?

    And finally a question for Neo, if she reads this: Neo, you have said that you and your girlfriends were fans of the Beatles when they came upon the American scene. Can you explain those films of the near hysteria of those very young female fans the news reels liked to highlight? Young, ostensibly middle class and schooled, teen girls jumping up and down, hands pressed against their cheeks, crying and even shrieking with joy … what’s up with that? Real? Staged for the camera? Did you know anyone who was that excited in the real world?

  8. @ Captain Rusty.

    Yes, a midpoint one, who because of his birthday was in class with almost all older kids.

    Don’t know ir they do that anymore. Start kids off at 4.

  9. “I don’t really like the Eagles, but I really like Joe Walsh.”
    Me too.
    Joe is an old “Ahia” boy, iirc. Definitely his own man. Authentic. Rough edges to be sure.

  10. Neo,

    I have had a similar trajectory. In High School I mainly listened to old blues acts. About ten years after their breakup I became a big, Police fan. Same with English Beat and their various incarnations. In the ’90s I was big into pre-1990s Latin music; mostly Mexican and Central American. In the 2000s’ I mainly listened to American Jazz from the ’50s and ’60s and in the 2010s’ it was ’40s Big Band and American Songbook.

    If I live long enough I may eventually learn to appreciate hip hop and gangsta’ rap. 🙂

  11. Neo,

    Based on where I see your musical tastes flowing may I suggest a deep dive down a youtube rabbit hole on Hall and Oates? I think you’ll find you like them quite a bit.

  12. These two links were posted on the second “JustOneMinute” blog. Yike! It makes me think of neo’s recent post on how the Progs demand that we accept their viewpoint. They literally can’t bear differing viewpoints (“if only everyone believes the same thing, that will make it true”).

    https://summit.news/2021/03/01/man-arrested-claims-he-was-strip-searched-for-going-for-a-walk-too-far-from-home/
    “A man in Wales was arrested by police for going for a walk too far from home … (Radek) was handcuffed … he was taken to the police station … Radek then says he was told to remove his clothes and threatened with their removal by scissors if he didn’t … “… after about 3 hours I was released,” said Radek, who was not charged with any crime.”

    “Vigilantes” (store employees) not police for this one.
    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/five-canadian-tire-staff-wrestle-lone-maskless-man-in-store-handcuff-him
    Staff at a Canadian Tire store wrestled to the floor and handcuffed a man who refused to wear a mask last week, highlighting again the apparent use of excessive force by non-governmental actors to impose mandatory mask mandates in Canada. … “get your f–king hands off of me,” the man can be heard shouting in the video … He can be seen in a chokehold by one of the store staff members while on his knees. …
    (Other incidents in “KKKanada”)
    In December of 2020, a four-time Paralympic athlete born with no hands was evicted from a bookstore in Vancouver for not wearing a mask, despite the fact she is physically unable to put one on herself without help.
    An Ontario man last year found himself one of the latest victims to his provincial COVID-19 rules after mall “cops” slammed him to the floor …

  13. DNW,

    My wife and I sent one of our sons to school early as he was more than ready. Family and friends told us we were making a mistake because “boys need more time to mature.” Seemed to work out. He was always at or near the top of his class and seems extremely well adjusted in adulthood. I do think being small and less physically mature may have impacted him a bit. At least until late High School. He only mentioned it to me once, but I imagine boys teased him at times. He still isn’t big on competitive sports.

  14. “For whatever reason, I have very little nostalgia about old music. Most of it that I do remember with any nostalgia at all is from the 50s and my earliest youth, and it’s not necessarily the music I’m fond of now. Much that I like now, like the Bee Gees, I wasn’t more than vaguely familiar with back then. But I agree that this may be unusual.

    First time around, I barely noticed the Eagles, for example. By the 70s I was no longer in college. Same for Queen and so many others. Their heyday was after the time when I would be expected to get the most emotionally attached.

    Now that is really interesting. I wonder if the music that sometimes has an impact on us isn’t sometimes from a period in life we probably should not even remember.

    I can recall for example being driven by my mother to the pediatrician in the Pointes somewhere, and hearing an up-tempo song with the words ” jing jing a-ling” sung by guys and a chorus of backing women. It seemed happy to me.

    Finally found it on YouTube. Kirbystone (sp) “baubles bangles and beads”. Listening hypnotized to it probably 5 times, I almost fell into a time warp. I could almost see the trees lining the boulevard and the dash panel of the car, the overcast fall afternoon … weird!

  15. JimNorCal,

    I view all laws as guidelines or suggestions and it disturbs me that so many folks follow them blindly, no matter what the actual circumstances on the ground or in front of their eyes. I don’t understand that behavior, but it is common in humans.

    Would they cross against a light to save a woman from being assaulted on the other side of a street?

    Would they park illegally to stop a child from being abducted?

    Odd.

  16. om @ 12:39,

    The farms of Ohio,
    Had been replaced by shopping malls.
    And Muzak filled the air,
    From Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls.
    I said, ay, oh, way to go, Ohio

  17. <

    DNW,

    My wife and I sent one of our sons to school early as he was more than ready. Family and friends told us we were making a mistake because “boys need more time to mature.” Seemed to work out. He was always at or near the top of his class and seems extremely well adjusted in adulthood. I do think being small and less physically mature may have impacted him a bit. At least until late High School. He only mentioned it to me once, but I imagine boys teased him at times. He still isn’t big on competitive sports.”

    Fortunately for me, I was probably a bit bigger than those who would have been my exact age, and so at worst, fell in the middle. And in that era, we were all constantly physically active.

    Your son of course can still run, and cycle, and lift, and practice martial arts, even if team competion is not his forte.

    Thinking about immaturity, I had written a reply detailing some of the basically insignificant quasi-violence I had been involved in through or because of sports related confrontations.

    I posted it, reread it, and realized it read like the rantimgs of some boasting psychopath. Thank God for “delete”

  18. DNW,

    I would have likely appreciated your rantimgs ( 😉 ).

    I didn’t push it with my kids, but I personally got a lot out of contact-ish sports like football and basketball, and true compact sports like wrestling and boxing. I am by nature somewhat non-aggressive but I’m very competitive, so it was good for me to learn that if the other guy is trying (and very willing) to knock your block off, it’s best to give it 100%. A split second in hesitation can result in insufficient momentum, resulting in pain or injury, or, even worse, losing the game.

    Also, it was good for me to play at combat on the pitch so that I was calmer off it.

  19. Good luck with the second COVID shot, neo. The only side effects my wife had from either was after the second; a very sore arm and rather tired on the 2nd day. Hope your experience is the same or even better. As I mention often, she is a medical professional and so was an early recipient. Of her co-workers, a few had reactions, always to the 2nd shot, but even then I don’t think anyone she knows suffered for more than 2 days.

  20. Is this an open thread? I couldn’t puzzle out what an open link is. I hope I can create one. 🙂

    If so, could this be something? A 3-year STEM college… with a dress code?!? Sounds tasty to me.
    Thales College
    Maybe in its ultimate effect, it will work out approximately as a “community-college-plus”. Only 3 majors as yet! Curious to see if this can work.

  21. Rufus T. Firefly:

    Same here for the second CCP shot. Wrestling in HS was good but this severely, severely myopic competitor figured out that indoor track was a better fit, and I didn’t have to “make weight” anymore.

  22. Philip Sells:

    Yes, open thread. I schedule these things late at night; must have been tired when I did it. Can’t fix it now – I’m at the COVID shot station.

  23. What I have heard is that you are less likely to get a reaction from the second COVID shot if you are older, and male. Because weaker immune response.

  24. DNW:

    That song “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” was originally from the musical “Kismet,” which is based on the music of classical composer Borodin. Here’s the Kismet version (intro for 40 seconds and then the song starts). Here’s the Borodin excerpt (theme starts after 28 seconds). Those are the versions of the song I’m familiar with – it’s quite beautiful.

    “Stranger in Paradise” was also a tune taken from Borodin, his opera “Prince Igor.”

  25. om,

    My freshman year I too went out for wrestling after football season ended, then, a few weeks in I learned there was such a thing as indoor track and tryouts were the following Monday. One of our best, Freshman wrestlers was in my weight class and I LOVE to run, so I too traded my wrestling singlet for cleats.

  26. I should add, of all High School sports I did, wrestling was the most draining. Wrestlers are in incredible shape! Strength, endurance, flexibility. Also, one has to be rather clever to be a successful wrestler. I’m not sure where the stereotype of wrestlers being dim comes from.

  27. neo on March 2, 2021 at 5:11 pm said:

    DNW:

    That song “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” was originally from the musical “Kismet,” which is based on the music of classical composer Borodin. Here’s the Kismet version (intro for 40 seconds and then the song starts). Here’s the Borodin excerpt (theme starts after 28 seconds). Those are the versions of the song I’m familiar with – it’s quite beautiful.

    “Stranger in Paradise” was also a tune taken from Borodin, his opera “Prince Igor.””

    Thanks, Neo.

    I had no idea of the pedigree of the tune. This is, I think, the one I remember from the deep and misty recesses of kinder-hood.

    Picture yourself in a ’61 Dodge Dart Pioneer peering over the dash on the way to the doc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orES0PaBg9g

  28. Phillip Sells,

    One of my kids was chosen for an experiment in our school district where they took some High School students and had them attend Junior College, rather than High School during their final two years of High School. (Apparently this is already fairly common in quite a few school districts, especially in the northeast.) So far, so good. She’s since gone on to College and is double majoring and scheduled to graduate two years ahead of most of her peers. Saved us a lot of money! Her group did so well the High School has kept the program and it’s especially popular with pre-med students and Engineers.

    Also, UMKC has a combined Undergrad-Med School program that cuts a year or two off of the typical timeline and quite a few Universities that have Law Schools now do combined, 6 year programs where one does 3 years of Undergrad, and, if they have kept a good GPA, they enter law school rather than doing their fourth year of Undergrad, then, if they finish law school they are also awarded their Undergrad degree.

    I believe Texas has a program where any student who graduates from a Texas High School can get a 4 year Undergraduate degree from the state, University system for $20,000, all in by doing their first 2 years at a commuter, Junior College.

  29. DNW,

    I’m sure you were safely in a car seat featuring a 5 point harness that was well secured to the Dodge’s back seat.

  30. Rufus T. Firefly on March 2, 2021 at 5:49 pm said:

    I should add, of all High School sports I did, wrestling was the most draining. Wrestlers are in incredible shape! Strength, endurance, flexibility. Also, one has to be rather clever to be a successful wrestler.”

    You are right. It’s more than exhausting. You can work out and power lift and do all the prep you want, but until you have to pin another equally matched guy on the mat without hitting him in the neck with your elbow or something to soften the way, you hardly know what physically drained and taxed is.

    And I’m just talking from an intramural competition perspective. Unfortunately we had two wrestling coaches running gym, so you can imagine what we did for a full semester: act as warm up and trial material for the teams. Got us out of classes for the tournaments at least.

    I recall having a guy on the basket ball team in a kind of backward cradle like hold; rocking his shoulders back to the mat as I pulled his leg up from behind his knee. It was not a fair contest for long, my arm against the power of a basket ball player’s leg. But I “had him” with his shoulders on the mat with no hand room between

    So I shouted to the coach “He’s pinned!” He says: “You don’t have control. You can’t pin with your back to a guy” (if you are on your back on top of his chest, your right arm behind his neck, and the left hooked behind his knee pulling them together, that way)

    I look over at him and say “ok” and release the guy. “Escape!” the coach cries.

    What are you doing? I yell to the coach. “Delay of match!”

    As I am arguing, the other guy plows me from the side. “Takedown!” LOL

  31. Hey Neo,

    Here is something that should crack you up.

    The women in the other tune reminded me of it.

    Music to accompany little foreign sports cars chasing each other up and down curving mountainside roads in Europe … in the kinds of movies you used to see rerun late at night in the early ’80s after the bars shut down … something about spies or bank robbers.

    https://youtu.be/olnReIMhHhI?t=45

  32. I don’t really like the Eagles, but I really like Joe Walsh.

    Rufus T. Firefly:

    Perhaps because “The Smoker You Drink the Player You Get.”

    Walsh could let it hang out. The Eagles, not so much.

  33. Music and Memory? Zulus! Semi-pacified in those days… but what you want to imagine is a Beer-fueled African Bantu Waffen SS who trained by dancing barefoot in fields of thorn bushes, subjected themselves to regular purges by witch doctor to keep morale up, left a trail of slaughter in their wake and and did all this while being top of the African Pops. Man can they all sing. Paul Simon could have signed just about any queue at a bus stop.

    But sense of smell is even better for bringing back the most buried memories. Sometimes I’ll be somewhere commercial or institutional and will pick up a scent which takes me back to first day at primary school — some component of the disinfectant they mopped floors with. Not quite as civilized as Madeleines and Tea, but it gets the job done.

  34. Not quite, John Fogerty and the rest of CCR were from El Cerrito, a Northern California suburb in the East Bay just north of Berkeley.

    FOAF:

    Indeed. El Cerrito was a nowhere-special little suburb. I’m sure its property values have gone through the roof, but back then no one was impressed to hear you were from El Cerrito. It was economy class for the Bay Area.

    Meanwhile, Otis Redding sang mournfully from the Dock of the Bay like it was a run-down, loser spot in Oakland, but he wrote that on a houseboat in, oh so, trendy Sausalito in Marin County.

    Well, at least it wasn’t Tiburon.

    I love the song and most of what Redding wrote. It’s more my disappointment to have a personal myth exploded about how that guy singing was truly at flat, rock bottom.

  35. Doing it tough in Sausalito? It’s possible. On my one visit there in 2001 I saw a tired old Porsche 914 Targa parked outside the Wells Fargo. Looked around for a bum in rotting Sperry boat shoes, but no luck. Must have been hiding in shame.

  36. neo:

    First, the BeeGees. Now, the Eagles. Where does this tour of depravity end?

  37. My personalized YouTube suggestions today have just the pill for Depravity:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4qvZT_y2g4

    Little does YouTube know that I’m really a Carlist. Franco was no great fan of the Falange and encouraged the more keen members to go and get themselves killed in Russia during WWII.

  38. Well, I can’t take a dig at Otis without doing right. He was a force. As the Doors sang:
    ___________________________

    Poor Otis, dead and gone,
    Left me here to sing his song.
    Pretty little girl with a red dress on,
    Poor Otis, dead and gone.

    –The Doors, “Running Blues”
    ____________________________

    Here he is doing a show-stopper, my favorite of his songs, and the day before he joined — the web tells me so — Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, the Big Bopper et al. in another goddamn rock’n’roll plane crash.

    –Otis Redding, “Try A Little Tenderness”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P29E7YYMD7o

    Try a little tenderness, folks.

  39. “little does YouTube know that I’m really a Carlist.”

    Hahaha … You are aware that they still exist, right? I just a couple months ago stumbled across one of their web sites, complete with a picture of the latest and well-bearded He-himself posing on a mountain side in a hunting or hiking style get-up.

    I just now found one link lingering in my web history. Too lazy to actually try backtracking more. But this girl with the guitar is kind of attractive, if somewhat broad faced. https://www.tradicionviva.es/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019-07-28-cancionero-carlista.jpg

    These Carlists must have found a Goth or a Suevi relict population somewhere in the mountains. First, Karl der Grosse of the Holy Roman Empire, and now Karl der not so Grosse of the Spanish mountain side.

    In other news, hear that huxley has joined Opus Dei, and that Rufio has signed up with Catholic Action, having found one survivor named Jacques still living in the south of France.

    Of course maybe I heard wrong, as one of them is famous as a Buddhist; at least according to me.

  40. @DNW:

    Yep.. I don’t hold out much hope for their chances at present 🙂

    So it should come as no surprise to you that I’m also a Jacobite, and, on Tuesdays, a Palaiologosite.

    Also have a fondness for Salazar’s Estado Novo.

    Less heavily invested in the Republic of South Maluku, but they had a point. Next Year in Ambon!

    (To be toasted with this:
    https://recipes.fandom.com/wiki/Pisang_Ambon
    )

    Just a matter of time before my winning ticket comes up.

  41. I’ve long been a fan of the Moody Blues.
    This may be their best album– On the Threshold of a Dream. While this is only the last few songs from the album, this portion was especially dream inducing.

    “On the Threshold of a Dream” was their third album, and a gem. Their music was very orchestral and ethereal, involving timeless themes. After their seventh album, in 1972, they disbanded for a few years. Seven albums in 5 years, endless touring. Because of the style of their music and the themes, some of their fans became obsessed with them. Hence the song on the “Seventh Sojourn” album “I’m just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band”.

    Their fourth album, “To Our Children’s Children’s Children” came out in 1969 with the theme of space travel and ageing, considered by many to be their best album.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1IkAyT_R2w

  42. “That song “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” was originally from the musical “Kismet,” – which was originally by Borodin”

    We did not listen to the radio at my house in the fifties and sixties so I never got into the popular music of the era – I don’t really know why my parents didn’t have one on, and we kids didn’t either.
    However, we had a set of 78’s of classical music and I was familiar with “Prince Igor” long before I ever heard the music from the musical.

    I can still sing most of the Broadway songs, but there is no way the show could be made today.
    Cultural appropriation would just be the first of the charges levelled against it.
    Excuse me now; I have to go read “The Cat in the Hat” before I go to bed.

    (PS thanks for the date on the headline)

  43. “These two links were posted on the second “JustOneMinute” blog. Yike!” JimNorCal

    What is even more infuriating is that people are being treated like criminals for not wearing masks or following the absurd Covid rules, but employees in most stores are forbidden to confront shoplifters or even robbers for fear of someone getting hurt.

    I think I’ll go get a plate of Green Eggs and Ham to calm my nerves.

  44. huxley:

    Gird your loins. There’s a whole lot more depravity where that came from.

  45. “Where does this tour of depravity end?”

    Good question. My guess is when everyone checks out of the Hotel California….

    Meanwhile, on the TRANSPARENCY front…it appears that the latest “Biden” brain scan is entirely transparent. (Which means, of course, that MORE walls, fences and barbed wire have to be erected in DC, and quickly—you never know where the next threat will be coming from: those Deplorables are everywhere, I tell ya’…)
    https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/biden-blackout-white-house-rolls-back-publics-access-president-appears

    For more details, let’s cut to Dr. Jill, who’s manning the teleprompter/respirator: Never mind, can’t get through. Later.

    (But honestly, to be fair to “No Malarkey” Joe—make that “Miracle Man Joe”—he’s held up far longer than I ever thought possible…. Chalk it up to Chinese medicine?)

  46. And from the Killing-Two-Birds-with-One-Stone Department (or should that be Pelosi and Co.?)…
    https://lidblog.com/dc-national-guard-troops/

    Yes, really gotta hand it to the “Biden” administration!

    (Hmmm. Considering the above, together with the urgent need to instill the armed forces with “Diversity Training” On The Double—and let’s not forget those “army-issue” all-terrain high heels—I’m pretty sure we should be expecting, pronto!, another incisive “in-depth report” by Jeffrey Goldberg on how deeply Trump despises America’s armed forces…)

  47. Academic freedom, revisited…. Turley:
    https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/sweden-moves-protect-academic-freedom-after-prof-quits-covid-research-due-harassment

    Key graf:
    “We have often defended the free speech rights of faculty on the left who have made hateful comments about whites, males, and conservatives. Yet, there is an eerie silence when conservatives are targeted for their own views. Sweden has shown how this is a global issue but that the response outside of the United States has been markedly different.”

  48. Yeah, instead of basing their music on Delta musicians or African rhythms the Moodies built on top of Euro classical sensibilities. I’m OK with it.

    Well, nice to make your acquaintance. 🙂

  49. The Moodies’ first big hit “Go Now” was a cover of a record by R&B singer Bessie Banks. Most of their early output was in the British blues/R&B vein until they made a departure with the “Days of Future Passed” album that featured “Nights in White Satin”.

  50. Yes.
    That old R&B iteration of the band included 3 of the later Moodies but had Clint Warwick on bass and lead guitar/singer/front-man Denny Laine. Laine later played with Paul McCartney in Wings.
    I think it was 1966 that Justin Hayward and John Lodge replaced Warwick and Laine. That was when they changed musical direction. Additionally Mike Pinder moved from piano to Mellotron, which accentuated the orchestral side of their music.
    It was a pretty noticeable, discontinuous break. Despite the name staying the same, it’s really two different bands.

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