A Small Victory

How about hating him cuz he sucks?

[duck]

"If I were to toss out every album and/or cd of every musician that behaves like a jerk or says stupendously stupid things, I'd be left with barely anything to listen to or watch."

see, that's because brilliant artists are leftists. because art and creativity are inherently more suited to a leftist temperment than a right-wing one. art is about creativity, breaking the rules, being crazy. and since art is the most important thing in the world, than left wing politics are inherently superior.

don't try to argue.

Must. Not. Respond.

Don't need to respond. By the looks of him, Thom Yorke is such a fragile little stick-man that a stern look would break him in half.

"... art is the most important thing in the world."

See, that is sheer genius. It is simultaneously an absurd and humorous comment. Clearly the work of a genius comedian who says these things not to influence our behavior, not to lead to a better world, but simply to entertain us and make us laugh.

Next time I hear "I'm Rick James, bitch" I'll make sure not to treat that as Chapelle's platform for Mayor of NYC.

Michele: You are my hero for writing this!! I'm actually kind of sick of arguing this issue with people - and I am now going to point them to your post and say, "That's how I feel. End of story. NEXT."

You have beloved Smiths albums? Ewwwwww.

I'm with you on not boycotting every artist who has a dumbass opinion, though. My record collection would be devastated.

I am, though, going to go home and put on the 12" of the Warlock Pincers ""Morrissey Rides a Cock-horse"

Michele, you've captured exactly how I feel. I've been a Morrissey fan for 10 years now, I disagree with his personal politics -- particularly the utterly annoying vegetarianism (which I don't fully understand, because the man wears leather) -- I love his music.

So I'll continue to listen to it. Although the new album is not nearly as good as the critics have made it out to be.

What usually happens is that the idiotic statements follow the great music. Musicians, authors, and other artists get interviewed too often to know when to quit. I wonder what dumb question made Gene Simmons (spelling?) of KISS answer with "I think Shakespeare is shit. Thee and thou, the man sounds like a faggot. Now Captain America is great literature." (Delve into a used bookstore and find Rock Bottom: The Book of Pop Atrocities to get more great quotes).

Of course, part of the problem is rock journalism. But is that blaming the messenger? Yes, but it's still worth doing.

And Roald Dahl was an asshole. Picasso was a complete prick. Kubrick was obsessive to a maddening degree. Roman Polanski has issues. Michael Jackson isn't quite like us. Yusuf Islam lost me. But they were all brilliant (usually) at what made them famous.

Enjoy a Cat Stevens album, read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", watch "Beat It", and enjoy the fact that these people worked hard so you could enjoy their art. And be glad that you got to live a normal(ish) life.

I remember struggling with this when Woody Alan turned out to be a creep.

I decided it doesn't matter; Bananas is still a brilliant skewering of leftist revolutionary pretension, as Sleepers is of the fascists.

Shockley turned out to be a racist prig. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop using transistors. (Um, he did, didn't he? Or did he just not condemn The Bell Curve? Can't remember.) (And anyway, junction transistors are becoming passe; most transistors these days are of the field-effect type. Whew!)

Humans are flawed. The great are often greatly flawed. Celebrate the good; forget the bad.

Think of it as evolution in action.

here's a related story you'll dig:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9789131%255E2702,00.html
LABOR'S attempts to install Peter Garrett in a safe seat were dealt a blow last night after an angry meeting of branch members overwhelmingly rejected the move.

About 200 people met after senior Labor figures indicated they were ready to override the traditional preselection process in the seat of Kingsford-Smith to install the former frontman for Midnight Oil. ...

Former Randwick mayor and prospective candidate Dominic Sullivan said the message to Mr Garrett was "don't bother applying".

"We don't want a wealthy ageing rock star who comes from the southern highlands to be our candidate," he said.

this generation's Jim Nabors IMO.
Though I don't know much about Nabors' politics.

Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole.

Repo Man is another great piece of art from someone with a disagreeable political background. Damn funny social commentary, that. But Walker was a complete mess that made the awfully bad Straight to Hell look good (Straight to Hell has an incredibly good soundtrack, however: "Salsa Y Ketchup" rules!)

see, that's because brilliant artists are leftists. because art and creativity are inherently more suited to a leftist temperment than a right-wing one. art is about creativity, breaking the rules, being crazy. and since art is the most important thing in the world, than left wing politics are inherently superior.

Clearly you are not an artist or even creatively-inclined, Thom.

Art is none of those things...that's just a lot of crap that pretentious non-artists throw around to make people think they understand. Basically, like the citizens in the fairytale, "The Emperor's New Clothes". No one wants to be labeled a Philistine, and so they fake it and hope that pesky little child isn't there.

As an artist, I can at least describe a little of what art really is (though I know you can't possibly understand). Art is about creating beauty, about expressing what it means to be human, about leaving a lasting legacy for the future to remember us as a people by. Which is why there are so few true artists in the world...simply a gaggle of poseurs who get fat off the prosperity of others. We'll never see another da Vinci so long as we have mediocre minds such as Morrissey and yourself.

I suspect you didn't want anyone to argue because then you would have to climb down from your ivory tower. Bit of a fall, there.

I also won't be throwing out my old Smiths albums, but I may think twice before buying any of his new stuff. (Honestly, I hadn't bought a new Morrissey record in years--I stopped with Vauxhall and I.)

So you won't mind if I keep on loving the hell out of Janeane Garafolo?

I agree with Russell. I say throw out the albums because his music and The Smiths SUCK.

I'm with you Michelle. The Smiths put out excellent music. 'How soon is now?' is one of my all time favorites. 'Meat is Murder' is a great album. I think Johnny Marr was the heart of that band. Even some of his early solo work was pretty good. Morrissey is an ass, so was Wagner but that doesn't make 'The Ride of the Valkyries' any less great.

Don't throw the albums/CDs out--sell them to a secondhand music store. That way you rob this little turd of a few sales.

Clearly, there are no diehard Radiohead fans in the audience today. Sigh...

My sympathies, "Thom".

I've always loved Morrisey. He's just so damn silly and out there twisting on his own cross. How can one be mad at someone who risked (hell, ran headlong into) ridicule because he was so seriously goofy in a way that no American can pull off. I never knew whether to laugh or cry. Girlfriend In A Coma comes to mind. It sounds like I should be sad but it was funny to me and I'll never know whether he meant it that way. I guess I always felt like he probably never came to a single session with anything written down and we were hearing spontaneous emotional catharsis. So much of his lyrics were off and always felt incongruous to the music, as if Marr & Crew crafted this great vibe and then Morrisey just say screw it, I'll just warm up with a stream of consciousness rant about a little blurb I read in the newspaper and they decided to publish that take. He certainly was/is proudly pathetic.

Morrissey is NOT the new Jim Nabors. Clay Aiken is the new Jim Nabors.

I'd watch a reality show that found the new Jim Nabors, then laugh the winner gets a sitcom deal, then laugh harder when it turns out to be a remake not of Gomer Pyle, but of that Sid and Marty Krofft show The Lost Saucer, which starred Nabors and Ruth Buzzi or whoever as child-kidnapping robots or people with cardboard and aluminum chests or something.

Memories are cruel things.

Kelli, I ignored the Thom Yorke reference. It was just silly.

Oh crap ... Ted Rall is being a total ass on Fox right now...

Sorry I was OT on my previous post...I was just so startled when I saw pseudo-male Rall doing his "I have the Truth and you are all stupid sheeple" act on TV. ::::shudder::::

What I was going to post before that unfortunate interruption, was I hope that the Morrissey indecency will again demonstrate there is no correlation between "art" and personal character.

I know some people obviously do take politics more seriously than music, but I can't really fathom it. I'm not a fan of Morrissey or The Smiths, but the idea of throwing out great, beloved albums because a band member insulted a politician is, well, I'm not sure I have the words to describe the utter absurdity of the notion. Amputating one's finger to cure a hangnail comes to mind.

I don't give a flip whether Bruce up and declares himself a communist or Max Weinberg decides to join the Nazi party, you're not getting my copy of Darkness On The Edge Of Town.
;-)

Try going punk. Awesome interview with Johnny Ramone. http://www.washingtontimes.com/entertainment/20040311-085521-1823r.htm
Here's a little quote...

"Oh yeah, they really get upset," Johnny says. "I remember in 1979 doing an interview for Creem magazine with [famed rock and roll scribe, now deceased] Lester Bangs and telling him that Ronald Reagan will be the next president. He was really mad that I liked Reagan, who was the greatest president of my lifetime. So I turned it around on him and asked to see his commie card. In fact, ever after that, I would ask him for his card. I think he had one, really."

Who's a think it? One of the fathers of the punk movement a conservative.
Then there's Ted Nugent and the lead singer of Iced Earth, can't recall his name right now, so ther are others.

I usually don't care about an artist's political preferences any more than I care about a politician's artistic preferences.

If a particularly offensive artist is fresh in my mind then I'll probably pass them by. But I'm really a song person and not an artist person, so I usually don't make the connection until it's a moot point.

Couldn't agree more, Michele... there are so many of these wackos, but I just ignore their politics... after all, for the actors, they are paid a tremendous amount of money for getting people to believe they are something they are not. Now they are using these same powers to attempt to make people think they have a clue about the world outside their gates. I ain't buying, but I can differentiate and still enjoy their performances. Now, there are a few who are really pushing the boundaries, but I'm steadfast.

Of course, that doesn't mean I won't be picking Danny Glover's teeth out of my knuckles if I ever run across him... :)

This is a tough one. I too love art and music produced by people who don't know when to shut up. I stopped listening to new stuff by Sheryl Crow and Moby, among others, simply because I couldn't separate their voices on CD from their behavior. At the same time, I still like their old stuff.

After an artist mistakes his little silo of artisitic creation for the entire farm of human truth, the pretentiousness and self-importance tends to come out in their art. And then it becomes truly bad. (Garafolo is a good example: once she was very funny, now she's just irritating, if not pitiable.) They risk changing from The Beatles singing Helter Skelter to Charlie Manson singing the Beatles.

As for thom yorke, I really hope that is not Mr. Radiohead himself speaking (any fool can cut & paste a mailto). I love your work; don't spoil it by thinking you are equally brilliant outside of music. Please stop, cierra tu boca, y cantas.

I don't give these people my money; I just check their CDs out of the Library and burn a copy.

I'm a little late to this whole party it seems, but I gotta agree with Michele 100%. Personally, I wouldn't mind slapping Thom Yorke (the real one)until he learned to just play music and not talk, but, hey, Radiohead is great. Same goes for a lot of my vast music collection. Now that I think about it, a good chunk of my friends too.

Anyone else think the Mojo Nixon cover of Girlfriend in a Coma is great? I love the "blame Morrissey" part at the end.

I still can't listen to Meat is Murder. That song grosses me out, and I love burgers!

My criteria is simple: entertainers I like can say anything they want and I give them a pass. But if I don't like them, they had better not open their yaps around me. They have already displeased me enough by not getting me to like them.

Okay, seriously -- I saw a glimpse of Morissey's new video (for his song "English Blood, Irish Heart" -- or, "Irish Blood, English Heart," or maybe it was "English Ass, Irish Class, That's Why I Can't Dance") and it

SUCKED.

Not one of his prouder moments. However, I approve of his new faded-matinee-idol/retired-schoolmaster look. I think he should just drop the pop thing or whatever his music is called and just do Tony Bennett and Mel Torme covers. NO Mister Stephen Michael Paul John St. John Morissey you CAN'T have any input here. See "displeased me" above. Your life hangs on a thread, and you must OBEY ME if you want to be able to continue thrilling hundreds with your outré singing style and slack-assed stage presence. Remember, in hell everyone's a meat-eater. (Except for Ted Nugent: he will only be allowed to eat insects. A good source of protein!)

art is the most important thing in the world

Spoken like a true virgin.

As Morrissey might have said: Bush and mostly all United States of America (who do you think you are by calling yourself America...America is a whole continent!!!!!!!!!!) really sucks!!!!!