king of the world

Its not that I have anything personal against Paul Simon. I don't actively hate him. I just don't like his music, or the tastes of his audience, or the people who sell his music to his audience. It and them are nearly the antithesis of what I think has "quality" and is "artistic". His artistic intentions have no value to me. But that's just my opinion, yours may be different. Eno's art has (in the past) had great value to me. Now apparently Eno and Simon are going to work together on a new Paul Simon record - this unlikely coupling creates a dilemma. Is it sweet or sour? Or neither? Do they nullify each other like mayonnaise and butter? Or do they augment each other and make something new like peanut butter with chocolate? Or is it just repugnant and inedible like getting sand in your sandwich?

No matter what Eno's role in this, its almost as ugly as the Iggy Pop song "Lust For Life" being used on a cruise line commercial. Was Iggy so hard up? Or had he no choice? Was a gun held to his head? Makes me wonder whether some tremendous pressure was also brought to bear on Mr. E.... Or maybe Eno's hit his big shiny head once too often a little too hard? Any other possibilities, like him working with someone like Paul Simon of his own free will are are just too terrible and discouraging to contemplate - perhaps he has been fooling everyone all these years? Makes one wonder if everything and everyone for sale to serve the insatiable American pop craw?

Maybe Eno has too much time on his hands. Maybe he has some big bills - gambling debts, protection money, alimonies, child support, drug habit, or expensive hobby? Maybe he's been hanging with the wrong crowd, going to the wrong parties and come under the influence of corrupt American music industry demons? Is intervention necessary? An exorcism? Or is a
simple excommunication from the temple necessary? Throw him down the stairs out into the street, wipe our hands, turn our backs, shut the door and forget him?

No matter what goes on here, this is one of a few records that have Eno's prints on it that I won't buy. (the others being the James')

"Pop" goes the weasel

--Bill wrote:
“On May 4, 2006, at 10:03 PM, wobbly scribbled with a crayon:”

> Its not that I have anything personal against Paul Simon. I don't
> actively hate him.

--Bill also wrote:
"This one goes to 11."

> I just don't like his music, or his audience, or the people who
> sell his music to his audience.

--Bill then wrote:
“Thank the Gods "somebody" isn't king of the world.”
--and went on a little in similar vein...

So I replied:

I don't know what you might be imaging about a 'king of the world'. Maybe you were thinking about what you might do if you were - something nasty perhaps to all those people who detest Paul Simon's music? Something punitive to all those who speak of their detest of that detestable music, and to those good people whose opposition to those who have the inhuman nerve to sell that detestable Paul Simon's detestable music to the innocent (but detestable) sheep of the music consuming audience? This detestation makes them a direct enemy of those who imagine being a dictator of aesthetics and behaviour - would you suppress them harshly - Stalinate them and their disagreeable detestation?

I expressed nothing but my opinion and raised a few questions. I saw something I think is ugly and I said so. I didn't say anything about what other people ought to think or do. I just ask questions to stir one up and stimulate debate. Its interesting that your thinking went to regulation - that's exactly what you've done - the dictatorial scolding about what people should say and think and do. Shame on you - to know better and do worse! But thank you too - that kind of attitude would never have occured to me otherwise, so I learned something from your unusual perspective on my opinion. Perhaps its because you didn't read all the way through my post, or maybe misread it, or misunderstood what I was attempting to express? Sorry about that. I guess from now on I'll try to be more clear and simplify my statements in case you have trouble understanding metaphor, sarcasm, and black humor. I could try to be relentlessly positive and champion what everyone else is to be part of the team...?

In any case, what DO you think about this Eno/Simon thing? Do you like it? If so, why? If not, why not? Let's hear it. All of you snipers - what IS your opinion? I don't really care what your view is if you have one and can stand up and say what it is. Are you brave enough to venture it? Are you sure enough of it? Do you have enough belief in your own personality and aesthetics to say what YOU really think? If you don't have opinions on aesthetics and why and how art is made, and you don't know what you like and why, you have no business talking about it, much less taking piddly little potshots at anyone who does have an opinion.

Many people pretend like they don't see the embarrassing or ugly. We learn to wear blinders and not see, not experience. Usually it takes a child to point out when something really stinks. Why? Because they are unafraid to speak their mind. They haven't been told often enough yet that to tell the truth is bad and impolitic. We should all be unafraid to voice our opinions. Especially when our sensibilities are offended and we sense buschwa in what's offered to us. Like children and dogs, the best detectives have an instinct for the truth, the best artists do too, and so do the best critics. But its nothing unusual that they have that the rest of us don't. Its just that they are willing to allow critical examination of what they experience - they are willing to discriminate, to compare, to measure value. We should all be so nitpicky. Then we might all know when the
Emperor has no clothes - when bad art is made or is threatened to be made. In this particular case we could all see that the king does indeed have a lead hat dragging him down. And that is my own opinion. I was not sponsored or coerced in any way to express the above. I did it all on my own, for free.

To paraphrase the Absurd Christians (different than the Serio-comic Christians, and the Slapstick Christians): "...thank the Gods (us), indeed that someone actually has an opinion that differs from the 'yes-men' that are too common even here among the castoffs and disgruntled, because we are bored to eternity by the predictability of bandwagoneering and a pack mentality! If I hear one more lying quotidian defense of bad art I'm going to shove the Don Van Vliet + Jon Bon Jovi combo down their mass market gullet. Let's see how they take that in. Otherwise we'll just keeping cranking out the Enya, that'll show 'em"!

Scuppernong and sedition y'all