tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5736519966759455846..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Rolling Stone needs a large type editionUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-11596748003019410922013-11-13T22:33:24.990-08:002013-11-13T22:33:24.990-08:00From MOSCOW DOESN'T BELIEVE IN TEARS.
http://...From MOSCOW DOESN'T BELIEVE IN TEARS.<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=salv7F1yyzcAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-19583328845653427482013-11-13T12:01:10.609-08:002013-11-13T12:01:10.609-08:00"Vaclav Havel, hiding out from the Commies in..."Vaclav Havel, hiding out from the Commies in 1968 Prague, drew a great deal of strength from "The Velvet Underground With Nico", the album inspired a Czech musical group of subversives known as Plastic People Of The Universe."<br /><br />I appreciate Havel's championing of freedom, but he was too partial to the decadent side of the West for my taste.<br />And there's something trite about lionizing an intellectual because he liked 'my kind of music'. <br /><br />And didn't he support Wars for Democracy? How well did that go? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-39609728506032400152013-11-13T11:59:02.733-08:002013-11-13T11:59:02.733-08:00Patti Smith is 'I got up on the wrong side of ...Patti Smith is 'I got up on the wrong side of the bed' music. Pretty much all attitude and shtick. If the attitude and shtick are at least appealing, that's one thing. But everything was ugly and hideous about Smith and her music. <br /><br />Critics in the 70s and early 80s heaped praised on Smith and trashed Karen Carpenter. True, much of the stuff the Carpenters did was vanilla white bread crap(elevator music with vocals), but looking back, it's Karen Carpenter who looms much larger. Her rendition of Superstar is for all time. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-75256463841824868562013-11-13T01:11:15.949-08:002013-11-13T01:11:15.949-08:00I think Lou's work with the Velvets was VERY s...I think Lou's work with the Velvets was VERY successful, IS emotionally moving, is VERY beautiful, DOES get me to feel and goes further out on a limb than anyone else playing a guitar in 1967 and 1968, after which Lou backed off, after John Cale was kicked out of the band. <br /><br />When you mention Jefferson Starship to people nowadays, the usual response is laughter, if people remember them at all. <br /><br /><br />It is the folk music of real freaks. Vaclav Havel, hiding out from the Commies in 1968 Prague, drew a great deal of strength from "The Velvet Underground With Nico", the album inspired a Czech musical group of subversives known as Plastic People Of The Universe. When Havel became president of Czechoslovakia in the 90s, Lou was given the Key to the Country. Not McCartney, not Keith Richards, not Bob Dylan, not Bjorn Ulvaeuss, but Lou Reed. <br /><br />I love Bukowski, and I've never been to the racetrack and I'm a light drinker. I love Lou, and have only dabbled with hard drugs and have never had sex with a man. <br /><br />I wouldn't think for a minute that everyone should agree with me, but there is a large demographic of people that put Lou up with The Beatles, Elvis and Sinatra. I am one of them. Ted Planknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-23270805652090397142013-11-13T00:32:16.123-08:002013-11-13T00:32:16.123-08:00VU-like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Uh8933Jv...VU-like<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Uh8933JvsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-75364276666019100552013-11-12T18:30:24.149-08:002013-11-12T18:30:24.149-08:00"Steve,
OT, but I donated some money to you ..."Steve,<br /><br />OT, but I donated some money to you via VDARE in early October. I saw the charge deducted on my credit card statement. However, today I noticed that the amount had been returned from VDARE.<br /><br />Do you know what is going on? It seems that after a month, the donation has been returned."<br /><br /><br />You trying to pay Steve in bitcoins again?Porous Shinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50994104430764283952013-11-12T17:45:29.999-08:002013-11-12T17:45:29.999-08:00http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNxG7JnO1oA
He loo...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNxG7JnO1oA<br /><br />He looks like a cross between ET and John Malkovich. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90530247905368802132013-11-12T17:42:01.471-08:002013-11-12T17:42:01.471-08:00"Fortunately, my generation was the best publ...<a href="http://youtu.be/YPTzwxr-ZqU?t=28s" rel="nofollow">"Fortunately, my generation was the best public school educated group before or since."</a><br /><br />You can say that again. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71014829338082722302013-11-12T17:07:43.549-08:002013-11-12T17:07:43.549-08:00"OF COURSE "We Built This City" is ..."OF COURSE "We Built This City" is a far better song than "White Rabbit." Of course. How could anyone think differently? Starship was far superior to Airplane."<br /><br />I like We Built This City. Cheesy song but lots of fun and has nostalgia value. (I also prefer Moody Blues' Wildest Dreams to their more 'serious' stuff in the 60s and 70s. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EXCIWlm1fs" rel="nofollow">Timothy Leary Is Dead</a> indeed!) <br />I never much liked Jefferson Airplane. Overwrought, message-laden, heavy-handed. White Rabbit is a remarkable in a way, but it's so obviously a drug anthem. It's almost a lecture tour on tripping. Gimme Scott Mckenzie's San Francisco instead. <br />JA was a better band than the Grateful Dead, none of whom could really sing, and maybe Garcia was the only distinct musician among the group--though far from a great guitarist. BUT what accounted for the Dead's staying power was their easygoing nature. They took things in stride. They made you relax. Sure, much of it was amateurish but they had a live-and-let-live attitude, and that had lasting universal appeal--as long as Garcia was alive at least. <br />But Jefferson Airplane wore their radicalism and druggy experimentalism on their sleeve. Grace Slick tried so hard to be a sex symbol of the hippie movement. They had a lot of strengths but their stuff was almost dated on the spot. Grace Slick in GIMME SHELTER saying "don't touch anyone unless you intend love" is one of the most hilarious thing I ever seen... though Jagger topped it with 'brothers and sisters, why are we fighting?' well, maybe hiring a bunch of hell's angels and paying them with free beer to control a mob made up of drug-addled loons had something to do with it. <br /><br />As Starship, they dropped all that 60s stuff and carried on as professional musicians and came up with some nice songs, especially MIracles and another song that sounds almost identical. <br /><br />Even so, it was as the Airplane that they worked in the mode of artists than merely musicians. To be sure, making good pop music isn't easy. It's easier to make an experimental film or experimental music than a good movie or decent pop song, and art schools are filled with no-talents who use experimentalism as a crutch for their lack of skills and ideas. I'll take good pop over crappy art any day. My friends and I've argued many many times about Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel. They tell me Gabriel is a great artist while Collins is a sell-out, but I'll take Collins the honest craftsman to Gabriel the insufferable pompous ass. <br /><br />Even so, there is something to be said for artists for they try to go where no one did before and be different and original in a personal way. Great pop can be homeruns but only great art can be grand slams. There is a difference between Close Encounters and 2001. <br /><br />And Jefferson Airplane's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQUKfjKc0hY" rel="nofollow">SHE HAS FUNNY CARS</a> is one of my all-time favs. And TODAY is a great song. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-33433947802441174532013-11-12T16:44:28.723-08:002013-11-12T16:44:28.723-08:00The album prior to VUAN that came to closest to ac...The album prior to VUAN that came to closest to achieving something similar was probably Dylan's BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME, which surely had a considerable influence on Reed. <br /><br />Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues and Maggie's Farm anticipate songs like Waiting for the Man and There She Goes Again. <br /><br />It's All Right Ma, I'm Only Bleeding maybe influence Black Angel's Death Song. <br /><br />Love Minus Zero/No Limit might have gave Reed some hints for I'll Be Your Mirror. The surreal love song. <br /><br />-------<br /><br />Venus in Furs sounds somewhat like Doors' The End. <br /><br />Femme Fatale prolly took got some ideas from Just Like a Woman. <br /><br />All Tomorrow's Party's sounds a bit like Bells of Rhymney by the Byrds(based on Pete Seeger tune).<br /><br /> <br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8gBysv5gYQAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30329674769805489152013-11-12T16:21:46.762-08:002013-11-12T16:21:46.762-08:00As was pointed out above, critic's darlings li...As was pointed out above, critic's darlings like Lou Reed, Dylan, Patti Smith can often leave young people who are both somewhat self-conscious and also culturally ambitious to question themselves if they like some esteemed artist because of a natural personal attraction or just because it is a marker of good taste to like them. <br /><br />I know when I started getting into rock music and eventually heard that Dylan was somebody you should like if you were with it and I bought one of his albums,it was jarring to hear his voice and I can't really say for certain if my later appreciation of him would have occurred naturally if I hadn't known I was supposed to like him. <br /><br />But I can still recall the first time I heard Walk On The Wild Side in the mid 80's as a Senior in high school drinking and cruising around with a group of friends and someone had it on a mix tape. It really kind of blew me away. I hadn't really heard anything like that before and I was the one of the group who was most into music and knew the history of rock way more than any of my peers (Kind of weird that I hadn't heard of Lou at such a late date.) But anyway, Lou's Walk On Wild Side is one critic's darling I am absolutely certain I had a personal, natural appreciation for.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-82531443156190554762013-11-12T15:28:03.679-08:002013-11-12T15:28:03.679-08:00OF COURSE "We Built This City" is a far ...OF COURSE "We Built This City" is a far better song than "White Rabbit." Of course. How could anyone think differently? Starship was far superior to Airplane. <br /><br />And that gets to the heart of the matter. Do cult guys like Reed matter in a time when "quantity has its own quantity" as Stalin used to brag?<br /><br />I'd argue no. Because Reed's stuff just got lost in the Kultursmog of mass music. Particularly the effect of technology on music-making.<br /><br />Yes. Autotune. So what matters is how well a former Disney tweener can twerk her behind, not sing. Alison Moyet is in the news, her record company wanted her to go on reality shows to drum up interest, she ended up releasing her own new stuff. <br /><br />Reed's edgy, ultra-bohemian, drug-endorsing stuff from Velvet Underground becomes irrelevant with mass-market hymns to designer drugs by Disney Twerkers. Since actual musical ability is no longer required given autotune's ability to "fix" nearly any vocal defect. <br /><br />Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre believe inferior headphones and the MP3 format are responsible for massive music sale declines. IMHO, it is simply bad music that most people feel no emotional connection to and decline to buy.<br /><br />And that is where I'd call Reed an artistic failure. His work largely does not stand up to the criteria of time the way Starship does, because his music is neither beautiful nor is it emotionally moving. It does not make you feel. You can appreciate the edginess of it in 1968, but its like watching a kid in the neighborhood ride a bike for the first time. You appreciate the effort but you don't FEEL.Whiskeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01854764809682029464noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-45664126435857362782013-11-12T15:27:19.950-08:002013-11-12T15:27:19.950-08:00Greil Marcus wrote a book called LIPSTICK TRACES. ...Greil Marcus wrote a book called LIPSTICK TRACES. <br /><br />Reed was a guy who wrote some of his songs with a lipstick. <br /><br />New Age sounds like it was composed while Reed was staring into the mirror putting lipstick on his face while dreaming of Hollywood. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-29107737535159439102013-11-12T15:26:32.321-08:002013-11-12T15:26:32.321-08:00I thought it was awesome to see a liberal accusing...I thought it was awesome to see a liberal accusing others of racism get hoisted by his own petard. Dave Pinsenhttp://twitter.com/dpinsennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-22770101334544596412013-11-12T15:23:01.861-08:002013-11-12T15:23:01.861-08:00"You're the Twilight fan. There was a goo..."You're the Twilight fan. There was a good 20-year-old Collective Soul song in the first one."<br /><br />Most Twilight songs may not be great but most are perfect matches for the images. <br /><br />Consider the scene where Bella stares into the mirror in Breaking Dawn part 1 soon after she discovers she's pregnant. Until then, it was all about her and Edward. And Edward fears the baby might kill her and the only objective on his mind is to find some way to remove it. But something strange happens. A rift with Edward develops and Bella finds herself bonding with the kid , and the moment is handled beautifully through suggestive movement and music. It couldn't have been done any better and the song's melodies and lyrics are perfect. <br /><br />http://youtu.be/S4JRgvoO1Ag?t=3m35s<br /><br />"Slow, we paddle through the lake<br />Straight to the very center of the darkest water<br />Where we can embrace the shadows on the surface<br />The eyes that look up lifeless from our twins below<br />And though your arms and legs are under<br />Love will be the echo in your ears when all is lost and plunder<br />My love will be there still"<br /><br />Lyrics are suggestive of the child as a reflection of Bella's hidden anxieties and hopes. She mysteriously finds herself bonding with the kid, even more powerfully than with Edward or need for self-preservation. <br />The whole premise of Twilight may be loopy, but this is first-rate filmmaking, and it's too bad so many critics and moviegoers are blind as a bat. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-85343087145974392582013-11-12T15:09:28.726-08:002013-11-12T15:09:28.726-08:00@Dave Pinsen:
I thought that "One Headlight&...@Dave Pinsen:<br /><br />I thought that "One Headlight" song was better than any of the nasally spoken rambling I'd heard by Bob Dylan.<br /><br />As I've insinuated before, the alt rock of the early 90s was probably the best popular music there's ever been.PowerChildnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50918213058578969332013-11-12T15:04:44.403-08:002013-11-12T15:04:44.403-08:00"Her rough, grating junky voice with the Germ..."Her rough, grating junky voice with the German dominatrix accent to boot was too much for me."<br /><br />I never met a dominatrix so I wouldn't know what they sound like. But I don't detect aggression in her voice. It drips with passivity and resignation. Like a quiet afternoon sipping tea(but maybe spiked with odd chemicals). <br /><br />But I think Reed really needed someone like Nico. <br />Was Reed homo or not? Maybe he was, or maybe it was just an act. Whatever the case, I think he was man of different personas. If anything, that idiotic film 'I'M NOT THERE' should have been about someone more like Reed. As much as Dylan changed over the years, there was a powerful persona called 'Dylan' at the center. <br />Reed was somewhat different. Sometimes, he sounds very Dylanesque on VUAN. Sometimes, he sounds like one of the early garage band singer. And some of the songs he wrote, especially I'LL BE YOUR MIRROR, seem to be from a feminine persona(and the vantage point of privilege--that he prolly witnessed among the rich hangers-on at the Warhol factory), as if he wrote them imagining himself as a beautiful woman. (No wonder Bradley Manning wants to be Chelsea Manning. Maybe 'Chelsea' is an allusion to Nico's CHELSEA GIRLS.) So, there wasn't a central core of Reedness like there was with other artists. He had a problem of identity: cultural, sexual, social, etc. <br />It was a strange kind of 'radicalism'. Usually we associate radicalism with commitment, but Reed's was uncommitted. VUAN taps into psychedelia without fully going there. It taps into lots of things without joining the school or party. A kind of dilettante eclectic radicalism. And yet, there is genuine hidden passion that smolders, which sets Reed apart from the sunny-happy-sappy David Byrne who, for all his real talent, makes me sick. Reed's lack of commitment--at least in the 60s--made him a figure difficult to pigeonhole. Billy Idol(the 80s star) had a very definite look and persona. Reed sort of attained it in the 70s but during his VU years, he was like a man without a face. <br /><br />A song like NEW AGE is weird as a song by a guy identifying a bit too much with an over-the-hill actress. There seems to be some musical cross-dressing here, albeit with far greater subtlety than Bowie's silly over androgynous antics in the 70s. <br /><br />So, there are songs on VUAN that called for Reed's streetsmart singing. But there was another side to Reed that yearned to be 'different' and that was expressed by Nico in the dream-songs. <br /><br />People are funny that way. Who, in the 1970s, would have thought that the snubby nosed kid Michael Michael Jackson really wanted to be Mickey Mouse crossed with Elizabeth Taylor? But that side of him had always been a part of Jackson, and when he made enough money, he realized his dreams, which turned into nightmare. Over the hill right now and looking for love. Granted, Jackson owes nothing to Reed, but maybe Prince does. <br /><br />For most men(who aren't artists) with sexual issues, I say squeeze your balls once in awhile to let the juices flow to remind yourselves what you really are. Otherwise, it's gonna get weird. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-49864903264962632142013-11-12T14:52:47.239-08:002013-11-12T14:52:47.239-08:00Jacob Dylan is interesting - for about a year in t...Jacob Dylan is interesting - for about a year in the '90s he was bigger than his father. Dave Pinsenhttp://twitter.com/dpinsennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15099068414557358542013-11-12T14:48:33.500-08:002013-11-12T14:48:33.500-08:00You're the Twilight fan. There was a good 20-y...You're the Twilight fan. There was a good 20-year-old Collective Soul song in the first one.<br /><br />Why the hate for Katy Perry? She's written more catchy songs than Lou Reed, and her music videos are great. She joins the Marines in one, becomes a girl Tarzan in another...Dave Pinsenhttp://twitter.com/dpinsennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-74895616888881820382013-11-12T14:44:37.175-08:002013-11-12T14:44:37.175-08:00"Anti-racism makes people really, really stup..."Anti-racism makes people really, really stupid."<br /><br />In America, individuals are free to mix with other races. But some people don't like that and want to preserve their own race. What is wrong with that? <br /><br />It's like Americans are free to change religions, but what's wrong with Christians wanting most Christians to remain Christians, with Jews wanting Jews to remain Jewish, with Muslims wanting Muslims to remain Muslim? <br /><br />Must all religious people welcome inter-relgionism? <br /><br />I don't see anything wrong with people preferring to preserve the integrity of their race or religion. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-84865675257617650512013-11-12T14:37:35.207-08:002013-11-12T14:37:35.207-08:00"Steve is right - Lou Reed actually was a mai..."Steve is right - Lou Reed actually was a mainstream rock and roll star throughout the 70s and early 80s."<br /><br />Depends on how you define 'mainstream'. He attained something more than 15 min of fame, but he still wasn't anything like the Bee Gees, Journey, or Bruce Springsteen.<br /><br />The very nature of his shtick precluded true mainstream-ness. Rather, he was an underground 'hero' who had cross-over appeal to certain segments of the mainstream without really breaking through. <br /><br />I suppose John Cassavetes was like this. He became well-known enough for his films to be reviews in all the major papers and he even made a commercial film with GLORIA. But he wasn't truly mainstream-mainstream. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-5625646975195941862013-11-12T14:35:19.291-08:002013-11-12T14:35:19.291-08:00"Nico´s voice was pretty obnoxious, as bad as..."Nico´s voice was pretty obnoxious, as bad as Lou Reed own voice was, it prefer the latter. Her rough, grating junky voice with the German dominatrix accent to boot was too much for me."<br /><br />She wasn't a good singer and her reading of lyrics can even be said to be ridiculous. <br />But there is a flowery sultriness there, along with melancholy and yearning. <br />She was no Joan Collins or Karen Carpenter, but VUAN is a work of 'modern art' pop. Her accent and off-key intonations add color, nuance, and angles. It has an abstracting effect, a sense of emotions as kaleidoscopic fragments. It it this broken mirror quality of her singing in VUAN that elevate it from mere prettiness to haunting beauty. <br />But her voice alone couldn't have done it. It was the combination of the song-writing, arrangement, mood, sensibility. <br /><br />I would not want to hear Nico sing most kinds of songs. I don't her doing Dancing Queen or I Will Survive or or Girls Just Wanna Have Fun or I Can't Wait. But only she had the right voice and look--and the Look was crucial to the art of VUAN--for the album. <br /><br />Sometimes, it's not so much ability as peculiarity. And VUAN is a very peculiar album, inimitable and unrepeatable(despite so many attempts to create something like it). <br />It's like some actors aren't all that talented but picture perfect for certain roles. Melanie Griffith for SOMETHING WILD for instance. And Anthony Perkins for PSYCHO. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-31576992755277126902013-11-12T14:27:00.558-08:002013-11-12T14:27:00.558-08:00"Stories like these make me despair. As a per..."Stories like these make me despair. As a person under 30, Zurich looks better and better."<br /><br />Wow, I though I was the youngest guy here. I'm 28, and most of the time I'm feeling like my youth is completely gone, but around here I feel spry because there's so many middle-aged guys.Bertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-17826707481624471322013-11-12T14:18:44.134-08:002013-11-12T14:18:44.134-08:00(The one exception is that I wonder if Dr. Thomas ...<i>(The one exception is that I wonder if Dr. Thomas Fleming, one of the most erudite men alive and supposedly a personal acquaintance of Reed back in the day, will ever have a comment.)</i><br /><br />"One of the most erudite men alive" is quite the euphemism for an insufferable, whiny blowhard. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80551908354615922002013-11-12T13:59:00.581-08:002013-11-12T13:59:00.581-08:00The lady in the piece is 40, has diabetes, 5 kids,...The lady in the piece is 40, has diabetes, 5 kids, and is on disability. I am surprised the WaPo ran this. Maybe they think it paints a bad picture of Texas culture, or points out the need for more government workers to coach these poor souls in how to eat right. But it also shows what a burden the masses of Mexican peasants are, and will be, on the tax base.<br />The Rio Grande area been like this for years. In fact, its the right that is more dishonest about Texas since they like to paint it as the successful whites in the suburbs with big houses and good jobs. Both tend to be true but while the right is honest about the problems of Hispanics in California they are dishonest about the problems of Hispanics in Texas. Also, Joe Arpaio of Arizona was harder on the illegal Mexicans than any of the sheriffs in Texas but the right recently has put Arizona down. about immigration not everyone in Arizona is Jeff Flake. The US Census claims that the only Mexicans that went home that got caught and stayed home were in Marcpoia County because of Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The others just changed states.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com